Album Review: Anton Donovan and Lacey Lune – The Delicate Art of Dropping a Dime

Anton Donovan and Lacey Lune have teamed up to pay tribute to film noir and the works of Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra on their new album.

Laidback and seductive, right from album opener So, What’s Your Story? (Strangers on a Date), Donovan and Lune evoke memories of 60s lounge pop and easy listening, but the duo don’t play coy here, as the romantic tones of the song are more akin to 70s double entendres than the prim and proper rom-coms of Doris Day and Rock Hudson.

Wish I Didn’t Love You, however, shifts the dial forward somewhat, for even as the vocals retain that amorous ambience, the song is more in tune with early 70s soul and slow-burning, adult-orientated pop. The duo doesn’t pretend to live in that era however; it’s more that they have timeless voices.

Donovan, in particular, has a timbre that feels more in tune with Serge Gainsbourg or Charles Aznavour. Lune can be as vampish as Lana Del Rey and as coy as Debbie Reynolds, adapting with ease to the demand of the lyrics.

And what lyrics! Romantic for sure, Hayes Code signalling in keeping with the decade that serves as inspiration for the album, and full of quick-fire wit when the course of love doesn’t run straight and true.

The surprisingly soul-bearing lyrics of Think Your Way Out have a Bacharach and David rhythm to them, the song adding a bit of Motown to the mix, which obliquely reveals the influence 60s pop had on Amy Winehouse, as you can almost hear her sing this song.

The Delicate Art of Dropping a Dime is two artists showing and sharing their love for some classical pop icons of the 60s and 70s and the culture they came from. Donovan and Lune don’t create facsimiles here, nor is the album revivalist – it’s a modernist approach to a well-loved and highly creative period by two highly talented artists.