Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The instrumental single is one that can inspire and be seen as a manifestation of the physical art made innocent, or it can sink without a trace, confined to the novelty bin, brought out at parties with a groan of delight as everybody remembers the dance that once accompanied it and the embarrassed tentative steps on the dance floor, aided only by youthful shenanigans and the Dutch courage required to pull the moves off.

In many cases the instrumental single is a window on the world that requires further inspection, it works harder to be understood, to glean from it the knowledge urged upon the listener by the musician or band in question; it insists upon being heard more than once because it has to have a catch, it must somewhere between the choreographed notes that dance and swirl like a ballerina in full flight, have a reason in which to be and not only existing because the writer could not find the right turn of phrase in which to carry it off.

It is a reason that is gladly offered by Jake Aaron in his single Give Me Your Horse, the sense of feeling that throws its weight behind the mariachi band as they conduct battle in the High Streets and avenues of popular culture, is the same emotional expression neatly captured by Mr. Aaron in this highly delightful track.

A good instrumental tune will pull you in, a great one will have the listener searching for the right words to fill the song, adding to the story, making it their own, marking it out as a classic in their head. Whether in the same vein as Perez Predo’s Guaglione, The Shadow’s Apache, Fleetwood Mac’s Albatross or Vangelis’s moving Chariots of Fire, what the instrumental single must do is first persuade with little more than a beat and it must be evocative, it must have the ability to put a picture in your mind that a lyric cannot and Jake Aaron succeeds beautifully and with more than a little daring in Give Me Your Horse.

An instrumental that sits comfortably with the greats of the last sixty years of popular music, a track that you cannot but help feel the plea of desperation, the rise of the steam from the saddle and the open country ahead.

Ian D. Hall