Free and legal MP3 from the Mummers (orchestral pop w/ touches of Bacharach & Weill)

"Wonderland" - the Mummers
     A waltzing, carnivalesque intro segues into some smooth, orchestral retro-pop that owes a bit to Burt Bacharach, a bit to Kurt Weill, and a bit to our century's relentless urge to mix and mash sounds into ear-catching concoctions. To me, "Wonderland" separates itself from a lot of the more disposable contrivances crowding the internet in our music-happy day and age via its rare combination of sweetness and sturdiness. The melodies are expansive and velvety, the arrangements unexpectedly thoughtful, even articulate. The bright-toned singer and multi-cultural multi-instrumentalist Raissa Khan-Panni, who flitted through a semi-successful solo career in the UK at the outset of the millennium, here manages at once to command center stage and to work as merely one of an idiosyncratic ensemble of musicians bowing and pumping out this breezy but slightly mysterious keeper. A whole different kind of summer song, this one is, from the Wheels On Fire track above, but a delightful summer song it nonetheless remains.
     The Mummers are an ever-changing array of 20-some-odd musicians, based in Brighton. "Wonderland" is a song from the band's debut full-length disc, Tale to Tell (Republic of Music/Universal), which was released in either April or June. (The internet is sometimes a contradictory place, information-wise.) MP3 via Fresh Deer Meat.