Kisses - The Heart Of The Nightlife

Alumnus Of Princeton (the band, that is), Jesse Kivel has taken time off from his studies to mess about with a holiday soundtrack. With his partner Zinzi Edmundson, Kivel formed Kisses to recreate the Balearic ambience in his head, drafting in breezy synths, gossamer-light beats and a lyrical air of romance - presumably to evoke that loved-up Ibizan sunset. The result, ‘The Heart Of The Nightlife’, is a partial success, a record that could easily become the poolside staple it’s designed to be, but one that sails so close to naffness it might have been conceived, in a rare sombre moment, by Black Lace.

The positives have the edge, with single ‘Bermuda’ swiping the best bits of ‘Club Tropicana’ (you know, that carefree, cocktail bliss; the, er, sunkissed abandonment – come on, there must have been something good) and ‘Lovers’ morphing from ‘Blue Monday’ thump to tinkling disco with scarcely a seam in evidence. These are 80s references, and that’s where The Heart Of The Nightlife is rooted. But while it wants to rub shoulders with Balearic house efforts of the second summer of love, its closest peers are jazz-pop flashes in the pan like Animal Nightlife and Kid Creole’s Elbow Bones And The Racketeers, smooth lounge lizards peddling sophisticated sounds for the well-appointed coffee table. Kisses aren’t that jazzy, but their synth-pop gleams with the same polish.

They avoid serious double-breasted-suit hell with a twofold saving grace: a healthy pack of pretty melodies and Kivel’s deep, deadpan voice. He sings with the tired romance of a seasoned crooner, investing their eponymous track’s “give kisses when you can” with the same hard-won wisdom and sincerity as he pours into the promise to “take you out for a nice steak dinner” on ‘Midnight Lover’. It should be laugh-out-loud, but you’re too swept up in the mood to scoff.

There’s a careful beauty in action, allowing each song to be memorable in its own right even while the structure stays rigid. A joyful guitar solo lights up ‘A Weekend In Brooklyn’, a heartbeat drifts into fluid rhythms on ‘The Heart Of The Nightlife’, bongos and Miami Vice synths break up ‘People Can Do The Most Amazing Things’ – these little touches mark slight variations in atmosphere, disguising the uniform pace of what is essentially a mild, single-theme disco album.

It’s an unlikely record in so many ways, not quite hitting a mark somewhere between Soho 1985 and Ibiza 1987, but capable of finding its own space. The problem is, if The Heart Of The Nightlife is left as the background album it’s surely destined to be, it will melt into nothingness, a selection of Bontempi beats and soothing ditties. The value is in the detail, in finding the subtle grooves and dry humour that rescue Kisses from a fate as the cabaret act at the edge of the night.