APOSTLE OF HUSTLE /// FOLKLORIC FEEL /// ARTS & CRAFTS ///

If someone does a remake of Breakfast at Tiffany's, the music would be provided by not the Henry Mancini Orchestra but rather by Apostle of Hustle. Folkloric Feel is a study in how to make gorgeous music that is sad, sexy and stunning - thematically coherent while being completely diverse and unexpected.

Brought to the callous and unfeeling world by the label that has taken over the "morning after music" genre with bands like Broken Social Scene and Valley of the Giants, Arts & Crafts blesses us with an album you want on a Sunday morning. The Apostles create the world in which their folklore unfurls in the album's title track; stretching out over eight minutes, the first six of which withhold vocals, switch time signatures and styles, the only vocal line in the track is "everything's in place...it's on." From there the album is off on a journey through a stylized metropolis of love lost, found, coerced and abused. In "Sleepwalking Ballad"; A man sits in a bar insisting, "I can't take the world mama/ Pass me another cup." Building upon a blanket of sound, the story unfolds in a classic blues narrative: "Went to the wrong house last night/ And I crawled into the wrong bed [...] I have had all my fun/ All I got let is misery." Leaving the hopelessness of the "Ballad" and entering a world visited more than once on Folkloric Feel, "Baby, You're in Luck," swings like a Mancini track with a French samba beat on which our hero is assured in a sweet female voice, "baby, you're in luck."

"Songs for Lorca," sets the decidedly French feel that dominates the second side of the record. "Lorca" is a huge song, building in its tragic beauty, repeating the line "victory comes slow [...] but true" and leads into a Getz/Gilberto-influenced dance in "Animal Fat." On Folkloric Feel Apostles of Hustle have set the scene, created the mood and guided you through the most gorgeous film you've never seen, don't be foolish enough to miss it.

Christen Thomas