Five years on from his salient debut, Ex-Tropical, Lost Animal continues to make outsider pop, fusing electronica with elements of popular music from the ‘60s through ‘80s. On his new album You Yang, Jarred Quarrell has invited multi-instrumentalist Shags Chamberlain to the table, broadening the palette of sound.
Do the Jerk beats with an R&B heart over cold electronic beats, but the face of this track is a bitter, beaten-down rocker with a curled lip pedaling his experimental sleaze soul. Prisoners Island is driven by melancholy keys with Quarrell’s vocals pushed to the fore; stripped back to the bone we see a fragility within the despondency that characterizes most of You Yang. Too Late To Die Young might infer that Quarrell has resigned himself to the inevitable demise into old age, but the apathy is cheekily offset by calypso rhythms. You Yang closes with New Years Day, delicate but dissonant in its washed out aesthetic.
You Yang strikes the balance between detached cool and steadfast sincerity, filtering it all through Quarrell’s dirty lens of sleaze, sex and sadness.
By Krystal Maynard
