Sunshine Brothers – Greenpoint

Greenpoint – Sunshine Brothers

by Aidan Roberts

Sunshine Brothers, alt-reggae surf-rock groovesters from far Western Australia, give us a curiously urban record with Greenpoint. Presumably named after the suburb in Brooklyn NY famed for its affordable bars and polish coffee joints, they recorded the album in Daptone studios with Gabe Roth and George Nik (Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings), and it is a dark and sneaky sounding thing. Seemingly mixed in mono for that melting-pot sound, the ghosts of Madness or even Barrington Levy are present here in their dubscapes. The wailing sax of My and the 180gram wax poetics of Morricone show off the band’s stronghold on stylistic clarity; there’s enough organic groove for the hippies in us to get lost in its vintage simplicity, but with a healthy dose of sonic experimentation to keep things interesting. It’s hard to fault this, though as always with largely instrumental records one is left with the feeling of slight missed opportunities – perhaps if the penultimate track Pipeline had swollen into something chaotic and magnificent, the dynamic of this record would be complete. But not bad at all.

***1/2