COLLARBONES: The Cut
Coming outta nowhere, on the eve of Marcus Whale’s debut solo album Collarbones drop their new single The Cut. It flows much like Whale’s recent solo singles, a spacious runway for lift-off, breaking off into a rave-ready throwdown. It continues the daring production of 2014’s Return, with the joyous tinge of a love song. Wonderful on every level, a treat to savour.
ELIZABETH ROSE: In 3’s
There’s a nice chiptune-y wonk underpinning In 3’s. The rest of the track has R&B aspirations that aren’t fully achieved, lacking a clear sense of direction – especially evident in the ambling middle eight and ad-libs that sound placeholder. But it’s almost there in the chorus, Rose’s strong vocal diminished by sharing the spotlight with a saturation of production ingredients. A stripped back deconstruction would be mad.
THE AVALANCHES FEAT. DANNY BROWN & MF DOOM: Frankie Sinatra
This is a bad song. It’s a bad song removed from the context of the mythology of The Avalanches’ second LP, now revealed to be titled Wildflower. It falters in a way that Since I Left You triumphed, beholden to garish trends that never were rather than transcending any sense of timeliness. And this sounds a little bit like electro-swing, when electro swing is the most trash genre in existence. The original King Houdini sample that makes up the core of the song doesn’t really have that. Where did these horns come from and can we send them back? This would pass on a mixtape, only just, but out in the open as a single, it flounders. Danny Brown and DOOM’s bars could be great, but it’s hard to tell buried in such bloated production. That being said, there’s a shit part of my brain that doesn’t mind listening to this – on the same level as Phil Collins’ Sussudio, an objectively shit song that still somehow feels good on the ol’ earholes.
TWO STEPS ON THE WATER: YoYo
Melbourne’s Two Steps On The Water herald their next record, God Forbid Anyone Look Me In The Eye, with lead single YoYo, honing a craft that emotes through sparse and powerful folk-poetry. The elements swirl like a creek bed, singer June Jones’ voice almost in duet mode with the fiddle, clearing to a powerful chorus.
SINGLE OF THE WEEK
SARAH MARY CHADWICK: Makin’ It Work
Sarah Mary Chadwick’s songs are intimate and open, gilded by a candour that has the power to comprehensively devastate with nonchalant ease. That’s all still here on Makin’ It Work, sidled up to a conventional, powerful, chorus that has the air of a stadium gig filtered into an isolated backroom. Pop platitude only compounds the emotional resonance, cries of “Oh baby” land like biblical revelations.
