Jacques Labouchere has certainly lived it: a multi-instrumentalist and nomad, born in the USA but resident in various placed not only across the Sates, but also in London and Gothenburg, he's certainly done it the hard way, busking and kipping on sofas en route to where he is now.
What makes 'Bi-polar Baby Strollers' (referencing his own condition and the birth of his first child) refreshing is the fact that Jacques draws on all of these different elements of his life and the world around him to present a varied and colourful set of songs that are simple and charming but not light on lyrical substance either.
Jacques knows it's a grim world out there, and he kicks off the album with 'Old New Orleans,' a song about the devastation and, if not so much the loss of life, then the loss of a way of life, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Where Labouchere succeeds is in his treatment of his subjects: we doesn't take them too lightly, but then nor does he labour them and hammer the listener with some heavy self-righteous moralising or doom and gloom trudge.
He's clearly one of those 'glass half-full' kind of guys, but without being too in your face with it, who views nostalgia as way of celebrating the past, rather than bemoaning its passing. He does this with an infectious and often uplifting energy. Even breakup song, 'When You Go,' (a truly classic rock/pop number that's really catchy) spears a Hammond organ with a relentlessly driving beat and sea of harmonies that renders if far from glum.
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And so it goes to the closer, 'I Found You,' on which Labouchere sings - quite literally - for joy. Because it's a grim world, in which bad things happen, he feels kinda guilty for being happy, but he's found love and everyone deserves a little happiness, right? If anyone does, it's surely Jacques Labouchere, who's given us a most enjoyable record, that's both radio-friendly and saying something worthwhile.
http://www.myspace.com/labouchere
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