The Jumping Jacques - Sugar & Spice (1969) [Reissue 2002]

More peppy vocal group fun on what I think is the Jumping Jacques' first album. As I mention in my review of their other album, Avalon, the group have an incredibly tight sound, with an enchanting mix of jazzy or pseudoclassical Bacharachian vocal group sounds and italian soundtrack-style soundscapes.

This album has a similar mix of über-cool and hip numbers, beautiful ethereal numbers, and straight-up novelty tracks. For the record, I consider the standout tracks to be the following:
'somehow I must be dreaming' is a bouncy piece that recalls Piero Piccioni's 'Fumo di Londra' soundtrack. The vocals are incredibly warm and sexy.
'Love me now' is another groovy, bouncy number, and is actually the reason why I got into this group - an excerpt from it was featured on the 90s bootleg vinyl compilation, beat actione.
'let them eat cake' has a beautifully rhythmic groove to it, and the same kind of faintly ridiculous wordless crooning as all of the rest of the group's material. The liner notes point out that this wordless quality makes them a truly international group, which I think is a nice sentiment.
Finally, 'through a brazilian rain forest' is fun. It starts with some percussive vocal stuff, sounding deliberately like 'the girl from ipanema'. The track itself is then a rather effective pastiche on Jobim's 'One note samba'. To me this sounds incredibly like Novi Singers, which of course makes me like it even more.

I've no doubt that this is an acquired taste, but if you're big on that 60s vocal group/scat sound, I would definitely pick this up. It fills the gap between Lambert, Hendricks and Ross and the Swingle Singers rather nicely.