The Singles Jukebox

Pop, to two decimal places.

Katie Gately – Tuck

Tomas advised us that “Björk stans her” which was more than enough for us.


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[6.50]

Juana Giaimo: Long and unstructured songs like “Tuck” remind me of my old musical taste, when I would dive through endless seconds of dreaminess. They also make me wonder when I started denying songs with too many seconds. But Katie Gately doesn’t seem to worry a lot about that: she tries different tools, adds new sounds and isn’t looking for a solid structure. It’s too eerie and slightly violent to get lost in it, but its lingering nature stops “Tuck” from being an instant and effective shock. 
[5]

Iain Mew: Glasser, glassier; glister, glitter.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Like being dropped into a terrarium, “Tuck” sports claps, tablas, gurgles, and other unidentified sound effects. Imagine a more playful Susanne Sundfør. 
[7]

Ramzi Awn: The horns only add to the fanfare on this unafraid single, a dark and stormy pop opus.  
[7]

Megan Harrington: Weird and wonderful, “Tuck” promises an escape from the ordinary that is usually reserved for children. This is without the overt symbolism of arch fantasies like Game of Thrones or The Avengers, purging the lectures and lessons and leaving only color and texture. It’s a mess of sound and you’re free to imagine it taking any shape you choose. 
[9]

Thomas Inskeep: Loud, unpleasantly cluttered, clattering, and unfocused: she could use a good editor.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: I’m not normally one to complain about a wacky bit of fanfare but I’m not into the one on this especially. It takes a song that was deliciously off-kilter and throws it out the window, and not in a good way. There might be such a thing as too many layers! Underneath some of them there’s a really nice, skewed melody delivered hypnotically, the beats pressing themselves onto my skull. Gately’s voice in places reminds me a bit of Bertine Zetlitz if she went some way beyond her weirdest point which I like too. It’s maybe one track too many, or one trick too many, to be the [8] I want this to be.
[7]

Brad Shoup: She’s riffing on Lady Gaga’s pop-ringmaster persona, but maybe also something older. Perhaps the more eldritch hits of Cab Calloway. The garbled horns play a warped reveille; frogs chirp; she asks what we hear and I’m not entirely sure. A light threatens to break through a couple times in the middle, but there’s so much creeping left to do.
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