Ilya: affection, passion, sophistication

‘Pop Idol’ has demonstrated one thing beyond any doubt: ambition and talent are not equally dished out by the Almighty. There appears to be an explosion in all entertainment forms, to the detriment of quality, obviously, as more outlets demand more ‘artists’ who all act like having arrived when God ran out of faculties of any kind… It is not a curio that it all ends up sounding samey and uniformed, balls-less. Bland, brown, boring with predictable kinda, more like celebrities, ‘stars’ behind any given genre.

One thing that is missing in today’s culture is elegance, chic, character… Everyone looks too ordinary, down-dressed [apart from Hollywood stars and few pop divas] and as uninspiring as yesterday… Style could well be one of the reasons that Norah Jones sells smeg-a-millions of discs. But British, for all they efforts are really a rough’n’rocking nation.

There is one British band that comes to mind - Swing Out Sister - that purveys bygone spiritig-orchestra tunesmithery but they appear to be an institution in France and generally overlooked at home. The same thing may happen with Ilya who appear to speak more civilized sonic language than their natives habitually require. No Mensa-certificate required to figure out why Ilya’s debut CD ‘They Died For Beauty’ came out in Holland, France and Switzerland last November.

Hailing from Bristol, this threesome offer cinemascope melodies, velvety, luscious, dreamy sounds, flirting-with-hormones songs that lead us to the ante-chambers of one’s imagination… ‘They Died For Beauty’ is a post-midnight album, a chill-out with jazzy elements, as light as an air-kiss and as passionate as a fantasy. Fronted by Jo Swann, this trio is unfortunately compared with Portishead all too-often and although there are similarities, Ilya are far from a bandwagon duty.

Previous single ‘Bellissimo’ offers orchestral-cum-cinematic sensuality, Spanish guitar delights on ‘All For Melody’, there is echo of French chansons, a touch of 007’s soundtrack-ness, crooning, swooning, tunes to dance/foreplay in the moonlight on a deserted hotel terrace as the sun fights under a Bali’s horizon… There is smoky, prohibition-era ambient about it and it often sounds like Humphrey Bogart will walk through the frame at any moment.

At the same time it sounds post-modernistic as if designed to enhance the modern bar atmosphere… Still, there are several key tracks that make you jump because you just think they had peaked and there can‘t be anymore… before another surprise. ‘Pretty Baby‘ starts like a cross between Morricone and Badalamenti to evolve into a mini-drama Kurt Weill would have been proud to have had penned. The title song is a 5-minute musical that simply closes the album on a colossal note.

Ilya make music to fall in love by and watch the opposite sex getting on with their kinda class.

8/10