Sweet Baboo - Wild Imagination

There’s a great deal to be said for the concept of escapism in trying times, and the basic thinking behind Stephen Black’s sixth album under his Sweet Baboo moniker is admirable. The near-constant turbulence of 2016’s news cycle had him pining for a more optimistic emotional palette, especially given that his fears for the future were being amplified by the understandable paternal desire to protect his young son from the world around him. Accordingly, ‘Wild Imagination’ is a paean to positivity, tentative in places, buoyant in others, but with all of the songs united by a single thread of finding joy in little things, with ideas of travel and home being a particularly prevalent themes that are ultimately less opposed than you might expect.

The standouts on ‘Wild Imagination’ are among the prettiest work that Stephen’s yet turned out, but perhaps also contenders for the slightest, too. ‘Clear Blue Skies’ is both glacial and barely there - a minimal guitar line and his soft, lullaby-style croon floating over the one constant, a sedate synth line. Closer ‘Californ-i-a’ is a similar proposition, gentle and quietly hopeful.

It’s at those points that ‘Wild Imagination’ is at its strongest. Elsewhere, there are missteps. The funk-flecked guitars of ‘Pink Rainbow’ are incongruous, almost jarring, and his half-sung, half-spoken delivery on ‘Hold On’ grates by the time the track’s over. Overall, it’s hard to escape the sense that the concept behind the record has played to its favour in some parts and gone against it in others; this is, therefore, not even close to being the most balanced Sweet Baboo effort to date. In terms of the case it makes for escapism, though, it’s constantly engaging and occasionally stirring.