HOLY BALM: Fashion
Fashion has a bouncing house groove with big fat spaces between the notes, and a sweet popping sax line in its final third. If you’re a 23-year-old inner city hipster who bombs MDMA every weekend and wants to impress a people at a house party, this is 100% the tune for you. It’s super cool. You can dance to it while your soul turns to paste.
WILD BEASTS: Get My Bang
Hayden Thorpe gets well sexy on the lead single from Boy King, jazz dancing in a smoke filled alleyway with a flippy-haired blonde and singing in no uncertain terms about getting his bang. I’m no Wild Beasts fan, but this feels like the moment when Kings of Leon’s junk caught on fire and their music turned to absolute shit. Indistinguishable from Maroon 5.
CLAMS CASINO: Witness Feat. Lil B
Lil B fronts up for this tune from Clams’ forthcoming debut, opening with a long of “bitches” and then wowing us with deep thoughts about his personal path to nirvana. “Famous like a rock star, respected like a rapper. My life’s a movie but no I’m not an actor.” The beats are sweet and spectral but Lil B is a fuckwit. It should be “respected as a rapper”. Also he shouldn’t have said any of those things because they are stupid.
UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA: First World Problem
The great thing about this track is that the title will never date. And even if it does, they don’t repeat the title over and over again in the song like a pounding hammer of ephemeral pop cultural death.
YUMI ZOUMA: Short Truth
Short Truth doesn’t have the punch of Chvrches biggest hits, but it’s paddling in the same ocean. Lush, punching synth pop made for dance-crying teenagers.
TODD TERJE & THE OLSENS: Firecracker
For what its worth, Firecracker is a re-rendering of Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Quiet Village. Imagine a roller-skating chorus in gold spandex shorts, swirling in Busby Berkeley formations and wiggling their arses while a little Chinese man stands at their centre atop a giant mirror ball, working the decks. Glorious, ridiculous, bit racial.
SINGLE OF THE WEEK
CASS MCCOMBS: Opposite House
Angel Olsen lends backing vocals to this sumptuous ‘60s-inflected tune. Opposite House has ripples of guitar, a gentle rock of funk in the bridge and endless waves of strings. The milky mix of sounds wraps you from head to toe while McCombs croons Alice in Wonderland lyrics in which a mixed up world represents heartbreak. Subtle and lovely.
