Celia – D-D-Down
We live in a lovely world where Girls Aloud and Slipknot fit within the same parenthesis…
[Video][Website]
[6.60]
W.B. Swygart: This is fucking magic. It sounds like playing squash inside a tetrahedron – everything bounces back but never quite at the angle you’re expecting. It’s hook upon hook upon hook – remember how that was the thing in pop at some point, how it’d be bamboozling you with all the great ideas at once so you’d have to sit down and pick them all out and it felt tremendous to do this (I’m possibly solely thinking of Girls Aloud’s “Biology” – and Slipknot’s “Duality” – rather than this being an actual movement or anything)? Well, this is that. Celia ain’t in love, she’s in la-la-la-love. It stutters and glitches everywhere, with surprises and kinks at every turn. It’s sort of like “Beat of My Drum” in a sense, cos when it gets its claws in it pretty much swallows you whole, and when it ends you’re a bit surprised everything’s back to normal. It’s bloody great.
[9]
Hazel Robinson: Oh, this is SPIFFING! I thought it might be slightly cheap eurotrance in the style of Inna; it is slightly cheap and almost certainly eurosomething, Balearic guitars and plucky little filter beat but when you get those in the right combination it’s pure bliss. It’s even got a little middle eight breakdown and there’s an odd hoedown element bubbling under all the way through; sort of like what the Star Wars cantina band would make if commissioned to write for Eurovision.
[8]
Edward Okulicz: I’d love to dance to this, god, I’d love to find somewhere outside of Romania that plays this, even though when I tried in my living room it was so deceptively fast. The beats skitter and Celia commands above them even though her voice is barely above a breathy coo. The overall effect is effortlessly kinetic.
[8]
Katherine St Asaph: I love the pitter-patter staccato that overtakes Celia’s voice and the way the beat sounds like a fritzing ice maker playing a folk dance. Then she glides cirrus-smooth high above it all, and it’s impossibly gorgeous.
[8]
Iain Mew: Not sure that the stuttering motif needs to be quite so all over this, but the intricate beat holds it all together even though the ideas start to become a bit of a pile-up and her “l-l-lovely” is just that.
[7]
B Michael Payne: When you say “computer music,” some brand of IDM or techno music may come to mind. But this song sounds like the coming robot rebellion. I can picture it blaring from speakers as the computers and machines stomp over the skulls of the fallen humans.
[2]
Michaela Drapes: A charming pop confection, the kind that can only come out of the wilds of Eastern Europe. The folksy guitar (or is that a kobza?), in particular, is really, really well-used in the mix. I honestly don’t care who’s singing, or what about — I just want to dance, which is obviously the point. And, I admit, this has made me want to dig deeper into producer Costi Ionita’s back catalog — please excuse me if I listen to nothing but Balkan pop for the next few weeks.
[6]
Michaelangelo Matos: I’m not much of a fan of Spanish guitar, live or processed, but I’ll take the latter treatment when it’s attached to a rather fetchingly disembodied pop-club tune. Emphasis on tune, one that’s cut and pasted as much as the six-string.
[7]
Zach Lyon: This requires a good speaker system. Wasn’t until I put it on in my car that I realized how utterly MASSIVE it sounds. It’s like a dance recital featuring elephants and little Spanish-guitar-playing mice. Or something.
[7]
Alex Ostroff: Should I assume that “D-D-Down” has the same baffling sort of appeal as “We No Speak Americano” did, except this time with bonus lyrics and flamenco guitar Nintendo fusion?
[4]