Bionica - Take Your City (Bionic)
Of course it’s not essential (or always even desirable) to pin labels on new music; but as a competitive challenge, working this one out ranks at least alongside the Times Crossword or advanced Sudoku. There’s little known to this reviewer about Bionica other than their name and their place of origin (New Orleans). In the absence of a press sheet neither a Google search nor a glance at their MySpace page (which incidentally, has the whole album streamed) helps one jot, leaving us desperately marooned with only our ears for support. What that basic tool tells us is that Bionica have a healthy affection for late period lightly cosmic and gently funky Miles Davis, which they like to mix with Dinner-Party-Digestible vocals (or DBD’s - think Carpenters and Air) to produce some of the most enthralling and dream-like prog heard in many a year. Alongside the 90’s synths and Casio keyboards that underwrite the spectral singing there’s also a fair sprinkling of subtle but classy guitar licks (on “Colossus” for instance) that bring to mind some seventies Italian band who’s name I’ve shamelessly forgotten. If you’ve got as far as reading this there must be at least something about Bionica that intrigues you as much as it does me, so go ahead and at least check out the free stuff; you know you want to.
www.myspace.com/bionicaband
Neil B.

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