HERE'S a happy curiosity, a stirring, uplifting surge of a record that mixes happy music with statements about homosexuality.
The Hidden Cameras are a vocal collective from Toronto, grouped round singer and songwriter Joel Gibb, who coined a flip description of what he was about: "gay church folk music". By "gay" he intended "happy", and this is certainly a joyous album - yet it also offers up an intimate and surprisingly explicit examination of gay sex. If any of this sounds off-putting, or if an album cover fringed in naked male bottoms does not appeal - well, just listen to the glorious music, from the opener Golden Streams, through Smells Like Happiness to the closing beauty of The Man That I Am With My Man. There are hints of Polyphonic Spree, suggestions of the Beach Boys and Phil Spector - but mostly The Hidden Cameras sound refreshingly like themselves.
Updated: 09:07 Thursday, May 15, 2003
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