Send "Cornershop " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Bbc |
 If you believe a somewhat fanciful back-story, Cornershop mainman Tjinder Singh and the splendidly named Punjabi singer Bubbley Kaur, who features throughout here, met in a cellar in Preston while Kaur was working in a launderette. It's not quite Don't You Want Me, but from similarly humble origins Singh and Kaur have realised some sort of dream – a successful marriage of funk and Punjabi folk. They gave it a go as far back as 2004 with the warm, burbling Topknot (included here), which pricked up ears and prompted M.I.A. to rap over a Cavemen remix, then the years intervened along with an utter lack of requirement to finish an album. Happily, The Double-O Groove Of sounds as laidback and unhurried as Cornershop and Kaur clearly were.In fact, pressure hasn’t been a feature of Cornershop’s career for some time. Ever since Singh and wingman Ben Ayres tasted shock fame with Norman Cook’s chart-topping remix of Brimful of Asha in the late 90s, they’ve gradually slipped off the radar – whether by design or sorry lack of mass appeal – and now find themselves self-releasing on Ample Play, where the lovely, totally ignored Judy Sucks a Lemon for Breakfast emerged in 2009. The Double-O Groove Of is certainly not going to snare Brit Award nominations (more’s the pity), nor spew forth chart-slaying smashes; but it’s a neat idea and worth a smattering of your currency. Sung entirely in Punjabi, glories abound from the circular licks of United Provinces of India to the out-of-season festive brass on Once There Was a Wintertime. Singh and Ayres use mid-paced sinuous rhythms as a bed for lashings of sitar on Double Digit, where Sly Stone bass buffets a Wurlitzer organ, and for the tablas-meet-Curtis-Mayfield flashy funk of The 911 Curry, while Kaur softens her natural shrillness on Double Decker Eyelashes and The Biro Pen to roll with harpsichords and jazzy, barrelling piano. See, within The Double-O Groove Of’s strict remit, there’s scope for all sorts of magpie schemes. Most delightful of all are the chopped-up Sesame Street-style piano thumps and Nilsson-esque guitar fills that keep closer Don’t Shake It bumping along in go-go shoes. You check out with a smile....full text |
| Rollingstone |
| In 2004 Cornershop dropped “Topknot,” a chill Indian funk jam with unknown vocalist Bubbley Kaur (and a little-known M.I.A. on the remix). For the fusionistas behind “Brimful of Asha,” the 1997 co-tribute to Bollywood singer Asha Bhosle and the Velvet Underground, it was an ideal match. Now, frontman Tjinder Singh lets Kaur sing a whole LP—in Punjabi—and her girlish voice shines over digitally-quilted, culture-mashing beats. The gem is “Double Decker Eyelashes,” a cocktail of powdered-wig harpsichord, tabla beats, and antsy funk bass. Once a mere band, Cornershop here reimagines itself, brilliantly, as a franchise....full text |
| Drownedinsound |
| Broadly speaking, those that are aware of Cornershop fall into two groups. Group one bopped along to the remixed ‘Brimful Of Asha’, but have been unaware of subsequent, less omnipresent releases. This has helped consign the band to the one-hit wonder bin of their minds. They see them there, scrabbling around with the Babylon Zoos and the Soniques on a motorway service station just outside the M25. Group two bought When I Was Born for the 7th Time, were intrigued by the depth and variety of the group’s sound and subsequently kept an eye on the band’s evolution and varying stylistic guises that followed. They’re probably also aware that Fatboy’s real name is Quentin rather than Norman Cook, and that he was in The Housemartins. Any Group one fans that picked up When I Was Born for the 7th Time would understandably have been perplexed; the album that spawned their biggest hit has been by far their most esoteric release to date. It’s sad to say that those same fans would no doubt be enraptured by the likes of ‘Funky Days’, ‘Lessons Learned From Rocky I to Rocky III’ or the brilliantly titled ‘Who Fingered Rock ‘n’ Roll’, but it’s more than likely that the tracks failed to register on their collective radar. The one exception of this in recent years has been ‘Topknot’, a collaboration between Tjinder Singh, Ben Ayres and guest vocalist Bubbley Kaur. The record was an infectious and joyous amalgamation of Punjabi folk, looped guitars and Kaur’s deliciously mellifluent vocals (delivered in her native tongue), held together by Cornershop’s familiar production. An inclusion on many of the tracks of the year lists of 2004, the relationship has, unbeknownst to most, continued as a labour of love; over the intervening years additional material has been worked on, the result of which is the typically idiosyncratically titled Cornershop & The Double ‘O’ Groove Of, a ten track album that includes ‘Topknot’ and its bedfellow ‘Natch’....full text |
Cornershop lyrics
