SINGLE OF THE WEEK

UMPIRE – Green Light District

(Hidden Shoal Recordings)

Hidden amongst the major label shallowness this week, Green Light District is the one single that keeps drawing me back. The one thing that’s hardest to put a finger on is the length; it’s damn well the shortest four-minute song I’ve ever heard. Umpire’s breezy wide-panned progressive rock – smothered in buttery, reverberating humbucker tone – puts you in a daze, and before you know it, the song is over. There’s something very satisfying about the way the Perth outfit goes about their business here; laying about a generally relaxed vibe is a really vague wistfulness – or ‘arthouse happiness’ if you prefer the darker side of life. Ordinarily you’d write this off as a fluke, but the Umpire EP featured a similar – if slightly less developed – approach, so the full-length is one I’ll be sticking on as soon as it drops.

ALL TIME LOW – I Feel Like Dancin’

(Interscope/Universal)
I Feel Like Dancin’ is apparently a joke track, making fun of mainstream radio. It’s a bit hard to tell where that joke begins and ends though when Baltimore four-piece All Time Low are delivering the punchlines; they sound mighty comfortable delivering the lead single from their upcoming record, jamming as much pop sugar into their music as You Me At Six, The Academy Is and a million other bands who sound similar to how you feel after seven glazed donuts. It’ll certainly leave a bad taste in the mouths of those drawn to the band’s frustratingly catchy pop-punk tunes on Nothing Personal or So Wrong, It’s Right; while the fingers here are crossed that this is simply a weird choice of a first cut, there’s a strong chance this is going to be a long album cycle for those drawn to the band’s attitude if they’ve traded it in for clean-cut, radio-worshipping pop. Then again, they did write this as a one-off with Rivers Cuomo, and, well… you have heard Hurley, right?

LAIDBACK LUKE & STEVE AOKI FEAT. LIL JON – Turbulence

(Hussle/EMI)

No genre can plumb the depths of annoyance quite like pop club music; electro producer Laidback Luke and Steve Aoki, brostep extraordinaire, have come up with a particularly dumb example that’s like a Crimson Tide crush-the-sub scene for the temper. Aoki in particular comes off looking very lacking on this effort; the track sounds like a broken, dribbling speaker cone playing an early-2000s hard dance track. JP stabs run through a terrible software distortion filter; typical Saturday-night mush-house percussion are abound and Lil Jon rambles clichéd, broken MC phrases (“Let’s Go! What a rush! Yeah!”). You might get a few nods of approval from the usual throng, but that’s indicative of this flavour of dumb-and-dumber commercial house; Turbulence is track that will barely last it’s five minute shelf life on the playlists of trashed glass-throwers and the DJs who feel compelled to push such rubbish under the threat of loss of residency at the kind of establishments that serve those patrons. I’d rather experience three-and-a-half minutes of actual turbulence – and if I ever heard this on a plane, I’d pray for the wing to come off.

TOM VEK – A Chore

(Modular/Sony)

Tom Vek’s an interesting artist with a lot going for him; obviously a talented producer, he has a sound that’s sewn itself through indie and club music without fading out in the wash like the garish abominations cluttering either genre’s larger labels. For a single, A Chore has drab overtones; using equal parts of the Bristol sound and some of the more reserved ‘90s Britpop elements, Vek gives a running commentary over a slow breakbeat about the drudgery of life and the escape from it – though you’ll miss the finer points of his downtrodden sermon the first time around until he repeats at the midpoint: “You’re not really listening to me!” On subsequent listens, it becomes truly compelling, especially as it sinks in that Vek is producing and singing the lot – and does so without the final product being self-serving or leaning too hard upon one particular influence.

KORN FEAT. SKRILLEX – Get Up

(Roadrunner/Warner)

Korn should’ve hung up the tracksuits a decade ago, but they still have an inexplicable following despite having no listenable material since Steven Bradbury won gold. Obviously thinking that they could successfully follow up their collaboration with Sneaker Pimps on the 1996 Spawn soundtrack, they’ve again gone to seek out the talents of another electronic hotshot, this time Skrillex, AKA Sonny Moore, a man who went from moderate success as vocalist of From First To Last – and as a collaborator for the Chino Moreno-backed Team Sleep – to stupid amounts of popularity, all over a couple of dubstep remixes that have made him the poster child for the sudden hysteria over the sound; coincidentally, he was recently signed to Mau5trap. As an act that’s experienced something similar, albeit a long time ago, Korn now find themselves riding the coattails, and ultimately, Get Up is predictable; it’s the current crop of brostep with Jonathan Davis whining over the top. If you’re currently nutting yourself over either act or mashups in general, then you want to hear this. Maybe.

HAVANA BROWN – We Run The Night

(Island Records/Universal)

You know the story: girl DJs tend to be extremely hot, play towards the more commercial ends of the electronic spectrum, and have questionable skill in the booth and/or studio (the ones I’ve interviewed generally admit to have some kind of major help – they’ll call it ‘collaboration’ – when it comes to production). The tracks they release are usually radio-slanted, and they’ll combine these releases with press shots that have had the living shit airbrushed out of them, usually featuring glitter somewhere, and making guys pay attention for a bunch of other reasons that have nothing to do with the music. Let’s go over the checklist for Havana Brown: Check; check; maybe. Check; check; check; check. Havana may be unfairly judged on her image, and her track may admittedly have radio appeal, but I’m still not going to heap praise over a brutal Ke$ha rip-off single that spews cheesy JP8000 leads, heaps of auto-tune and few hooks, even if it ends up shifting a million units.

SCOTTY HARMS

Comments (1)

Write Comment
Comments are submitted for possible publication on the condition that they may be edited. Poster's IP addresses are logged.
Name:
Comment:
Code:*