Written by: Dave Cantrell
Clever, engaging, perceptive and just damn damn fun to listen to even on the somewhat darker tracks, As For The Future (who, to be accurate, tends to use lower case in place of capitals) are as a surprising as they are a delightful proposition. Surprising why? Well, ordinarily one might – quite reasonably – presume a Brazilian-flavored ensemble would hew to those themes most commonly, historically even, associated with the art form, ie the timeless dilemmas that arise from the tussle between tristeza and alegria and how they affect the human heart and do so in the manner of your Jobims and Gilbertos and while the NYC-based, David Nagler-led quasi-collective indeed does plough those distinctive furrows and does so with both aplomb and respect, the fact is they do so with such a uniquely stamped imprimatur that it sneakily heralds its own new dawn. Overstatement? Perhaps a bit (you know me) but only a bit. At the very least this ain’t something you’ve heard before and hear it you most certainly want to do.
Self-released June 14th on all your staple formates (vinyl included), this is, thus far, one of 2024’s most unforeseen, refreshing and necessary releases, a statement given credence from the off. Hyper but the smoothest hyper you’ve heard in some time, “Don’t Do It Again” begins proceedings with such a deft snap that by song’s end your correspondent had to stop, reload and, yes, do it again, not least because, as an introductory track, it’s so exemplary as to make that word inadequate. From there, well hell, pick your addictive audio poison.
“Koan for the Music Business” blasts its gentle – yest somehow surging – way off with the line “If a record drops in a forest, does anyone hear it?” that tells you just about all you need to know regarding the level of unforced wit and panache on display throughout this album, which in itself isn’t to mention the care taken with each element of sound, every construction here upheld with just the right amount of ballast to a point that to remove one would be the equivalent of kicking the slats out from the whole shebang. It’s an impressive feat to say the least. To shuffle such a dizzying melange of components into a single assembly of song – the otherwise mellow and unassuming “Shell,” for instance, easy of pace, peaceful you might say, features eleven instruments and eight (!) voices – that not only does not feel like overkill but rather flows with a soulful, remarkably innate cohesion wherein every detail is vital to the whole, now that’s a level of skill few can claim yet throughout this album is on such vivid display that the listener will find themselves taking it for granted if they’re not careful. And, what’s even cooler? Occasionally – one might say ‘inevitably’ given our current circumstance – despite the swing and lightness of touch, things turn political, as on “The Mob,” a none-more-relevant take on the self-centered arrogance of a certain, lately-ascendant element who are carrying “torches and knives and know how to wield them / and if anyone takes issue, the government will shield them,” echoing, in its own style, some of the most incendiary sides that rose from Jamaica and Coventry in the late 70s, which is to say strident but inescapable rebellion you can, and in fact can’t not, dance to. It’s also, it should be noted, a dynamic of awareness that, as it does in real life itself, seeps its way into every scenario, a shadow ever-lurking that nonetheless refuses to blunt the joy and in fact, pretty much without fail, cedes to that joy in the end.
Take “You Need Me More Than You Know,” sprightly, airy, singer (in this case) Alexia Bomtempo gliding blithely above a busy bed of finger-snapping tropical swing while underlining the title’s ‘hey, wait’ insistence with lines like “I’m the one who likes to share inconsequential details / I’m the one who’ll tell you the world has seen better days” (a definite highlight that one, but then again aren’t they all and yes they are); or “My Therapist (for Ema)” that adroitly navigates that tricky space between the needing of a therapist and the having of one that – no surprise by this point – just may make you sway in your boots caught in the delirious sunshine of a Sunday afternoon; the irresistible Sergio Mendes-like pop and punch of “Letters on the Line” that balances that heavyness/lightness ratio pretty much as well as is humanly possible or the poignant finale proper (there are, on the CD anyway, six remixes and such just beyond that we’ll leave to your ardent discovery) also sung by Bomtempo with its – somehow – blissfully lachrymose trombone (Ryan Keberle) that includes the stanza “I know the house always wins / but I can’t tell when the game begins // so I fold, just I told you / I fold, just like I told you I would” that, to be honest, is almost close enough to being too good for words so we’ll just leave it at that, not a cop-out but as a tribute to its easy-sounding but hard-to-accomplish grace.
But, really, in the end? None of this is too surprising from a band of this style that quotes the Residents on the inside of their debut album’s jacket. You can call it ‘avant-bossa nova’ if you wish – fairly accurate, that – but whatever descriptor you land on, do yourself the eminent favor of adding this to your library. Once that’s done, you can break it out during your next Saturday night soiree and not only make new friends of strangers but watch as your already established ones become nothing less than devotees, swooning over the depths of your sublime, knowing taste. This album is that (almost casually) powerful.