Whenever anyone is described as a blend of Jeff Buckley and Anthony Kiedis like Tristan Clopet is an alarm goes off in my head, having been a Jeff Buckley fan for years and back and forth with the Chili’s as I like most of their overall catalog. I must admit after my first listen I was surprised by pretty much all six tunes and thought it may have been some sort of a fluke so I put it on the back burner for a while. I try to keep things in a FIFO sort of order (first in, first out) and had one album in front of it that I needed to finish a review on so I put both of them on my iPOD, mistake. I found myself seeking out the Purple EP ditching the rest of the new stuff I should have been listening to.
Purple is Tristan Clopets’ second EP and it is pure funk with a super sized portion of blue eyed white boy soul. To me the EP has two distinct sounds, the dreamy folk acoustic Jeff Buckley style and the Chili Pepper rockers that show off the guitar hooks and funked out bass lines.
"She’s So Alive" starts the EP off and Tristan is in his best blue eyed soul form reminding me of some of the newer soul singers out there like Jesse Dee, where he asks
“Isn't it funny
How you can love someone else
Before you even love yourself?”
The album then transitions into “Proximity Bomb” a super funky beat and refrain that will have you singing along with it. "Superficiality Is A Sin" is another great funk beat backed up by a great guitar riff, throw in some strings and this tune just all out cooks, the lyrics totally fit the beat with the refrain
“And what do people say?
And what do people do?
They all do it too
Cause they want to”
"Ethereal Evidence" is another funked up screamer that nicely showcases his vocals and rock guitar abilities as well. For “Love And A Question” Tristan is fully into his Buckley mode and this tune is just pure genius
“Oh one thing I never knew
Is what I was to you
Can you hear me?”
“Oh one thing I never knew
Is what you felt for me
Do you listen anymore?”
The final song on the EP is “Black Panther Party” which is a full on funk rock assault, reminiscent of the Peppers when they were at the top of their game. Tristan is on his way to SXSW in March if you happen to be in Austin check him out. The EP is a pay what you want format, paying $5.00 gets you access to three live song downloads, nice bonus.
