Issue date: 6/8/06 Section: A & E

Acoustic Alchemy

American/English

Higher Octave

One out of five stars



Don't you love grocery shopping?

Picking out the best-looking apples, making sure you get the pack of Ramen that hasn't been crushed to a pulp, wondering if you should live large with a 32-ouncer of Tecate instead of your usual Bud Light…good times.

Well, now you can recreate the experience with Acoustic Alchemy's new album American/English.

Yes folks, this is grocery store music-complete with cheesy saxophone and bad classical guitar solos.

Add some synthy vocal choruses and tacky keyboard playing, and you get that avocado-squeezing, cart-rolling, fluorescent-lighting mood. Oh yeah.

Seriously. Do people actually buy this muzak crap for their personal collections?

Nah. But I bet these guys make a killing marketing this stuff to shopping malls and grocery stores all over the world.

And they call it jazz!

Coltrane is rolling in his grave.

To be fair, these guys are talented musicians, and I'm sure there are plenty of people who like to kick back with some JC Penny music and fold their corduroys. But I just can't believe they sent their album to a university for some snarky college music critic like yours truly to rip apart.

What were their agents thinking?

"Yeah, baby. College students are really getting into that shopping-at-Smith's mood music. They'll love it."

The only thing I could think of while listening to this album was Kenny G., Yanni and Enya having a threesome after too many cocktails from the Las Vegas Hilton bar.

They'd go upstairs to Yanni's suite, dim the lights, then put this album on and get down.

And now that I've put that image in your mind-Acoustic Alchemy will be playing at the Depot on June 9.

Enjoy!

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