Altsounds - The Fancy Toys – Gypsy Eyes [EP]

Fancy boys the Fancy Toys proudly presents: ‘Gypsy Eyes’, a limited edition EP with the heritage of their worldwide journeys.

Mickaël Téo and James Duncan traveled and toured all over the world and as a result brought several musical souvenirs with them; though the EP relies heavily on acoustic French folk – mostly sung in English by the way-, their attempts to find new and original sounds becomes clear as they also borrow from jazz, world music and even a little bit of reggae. Most of all, the band isn’t wary of using less common instruments and consequently give away the leading roles to glockenspiel, ukulele and even toys (the fancy ones, of course).

The album starts off with the radio edit of ‘Gypsy Eyes’, the ‘tragic’ story of someone who, as he says, attracts ‘too many girls’. Musically it is, for such a dramatic story, surprisingly uplifting, with a mid-tempo rhythm guitar and with all the hand clapping. Most outstanding though is the singer, who, thanks to his falsetto voice, reminds of the young and innocent Freddie Mercury in his sensitive moods.

Though this song is musically as well as lyrically quite typical for the style of the band, song number two, ‘Immoral’, is from a completely other world: France. The less than three minutes during chanson does not really stand out otherwise than you might like the jazzy rhythm section or the dreamy sound of the French language – or you actually understand what they’re singing about and it makes sense to you. It sounds basically just like the regular French songs played on conservative French radio stations.

Things are different with ‘Flower Child’. Again, starting under influence of jazz, this song soon reach such an intensity and dramatic point you would expect it to be sung by scarred street musicians in the back streets of Paris.

The same goes for ‘Claire Obscure (a rainy day in Paris)’; this one sounds like a French film noire, situated in Paris in the early twentieth century; a singer, scarred for life, is whispering into the microphone in a little deserted café for one last time before his tragic life ends in a tragic death. The soft voice, the minor tones and the subtle use of glockenspiel and accordion makes this song a beauty in his own genre and despite being the outsider of the album, one of the highlights. The finesse, romanticism, storytelling and excellent feeling for production the Fancy Toys showed at previous songs, it all comes together on ‘Claire Obscure.’

The fifth and last new song – the album closes with a longer version of the title song – is ‘Fancy Toys’, which is similar to ‘Gypsy Eyes’ in the way that both songs are light-weighted, mid-tempo and acoustically driven songs with a little touch of France. But instead of French folk, this song borrows from a music hall and ’30 showbiz heritage. Its story is also a bit more uplifting, which makes it slightly more exciting and outstanding than his more contemporary musical brother.

If there is one thing ‘Gypsy Eyes’ makes clear, it is that we deal here with a band who truly enjoys musical journeys; a band also who don’t have any fear for trying out new things, including fancy instruments. And though probably none of the songs will be hailed as modern classics in ten years time, songs like ‘Flower Child’ and ‘Claire Obscure’ clearly proves that they’ve got talent for creating magnificent atmospheric songs that tells a story.