Rose Elinor Dougall – Start/ Stop/ Synchro [Single]

Scarlett Records

June 19, 2009, 07:06 PM

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Armed with a keyboard and a briefcase full of pop experience, Rose Elinor Dougall successfully escaped the all-girl pop group The Pipettes to explore other musical ideas. Following up her first single ‘Another Version of Pop Song’ and preceding debut solo album ‘Without Why’, Dougall’s second single ‘Start/ Stop/ Synchro’ sees her trying to make a ‘mystical’ atmospheric kind of sound, without selling out her old musical values.

The up-tempo ‘Start/ Stop/ Synchro’ shows that Dougall has grown a little musically; her voice contains a certain mystical element and by using (the sounds of) the harpsichord on ‘Start’ and the harmonium & percussion on ‘Static Saturday’, she recreates the darker sides of pop music with great success. Lyrically it isn’t bad either, considering lines like this;

Nevertheless, the singer isn’t cured completely from the Pipettes fever yet; ‘Start/ Stop/ Synchro’, however well-produced, is just another three minutes verse/ chorus/ verse kind of song and the extensive use of keyboards and violins during the chorus makes clear that she doesn’t have the courage - or just doesn’t want - to be completely hit free.

B-side ‘Static Saturday’ is, considering Rose Elinor Dougall's background, a little bit more experimental. The slow, dark sounding harmonium and the spooky, echo filled vocals makes the song the perfect soundtrack for creepy stories waiting to be told during a boring stay in a desolate log cabin in the woods on a rainy autumn night. It shows that she is able to come up with something more than what is expected of her and that there’s a musical talent waiting to escape from its chains.

In fact, the single is – if you look at it in a very creative way – quite symbolic. ‘Start’ contains both the vocal and musical possibilities of Dougall and the commercial appeal; ‘Static Saturday’ lacks the possibility of hit success but is more successful artistically. To make it even more dramatic and literate, one band’s ending is another one’s beginning and the same goes for these two songs.

Let’s just hope for the love of good music that ‘Start/ Stop/ Synchro’ is the ending and ‘Static Saturday’ the new beginning.

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