Pink Shabab - Never Stopped Loving You

Joseph Carvell returns to Karaoke Kalk with his sophomore album under the Pink Shabab moniker. Never Stopped Loving You was for the most part written between Spring and late Summer 2020 in his Camberwell home and like his 2019 debut Ema by the Sea recorded in the South of France together with Emmanuel Mario, better known as Astrobal. It's a record informed by feelings of nostalgia, love, longing, romance and loss and, much like his previous album, displays Carvell's knack for making introversion sound extroverted. As a bassist, his approach to songwriting is both rhythmic and melodic, making the resulting music just as visceral as it is emotive. Much like the record's title can be understood as both a lament or an expression of joyful dedication, the music on Never Stopped Loving You is profoundly ambiguous. Never Stopped Loving You is notably more electronic than its predecessor, but also full of the small melodic and harmonic details that made Ema by the Sea such an outstanding record. I was listening to more 1990s dance and house music and 1980s pop and also a healthy amount of ambient music, explains Carvell. These influences are clearly audible on songs like the Chicago House-esque beats of Show Your Love or Why Did I Leave You that Morning, the skittish rhythms on Let Go and the near-Balearic San Junipero. Especially the latter makes it clear that Carvell spent much time devoting himself to movies and TV shows, but also incorporated more piano sounds in his songs-he learnt the instrument by playing along to classic Beatles and Beach Boys songs. Despite being more upbeat on a rhythmic level than before, Carvell's use of texture and his peculiar voice add another note to the music. Even an anthemic song like Run Away, his first composition to follow a classic verse/chorus structure, is profoundly ambivalent, both overjoyed and deeply melancholic. By the same token however, even a torch song like You Stepped Out of My Life is enormously consoling. This, after all, has always been Carvell's strength: creating music that will cheer you up when you're down while also injecting a sense of futility into every moment of euphoria. It never shone more brightly than on Never Stopped Loving You.