The Singles Jukebox

EH YO I’MA LET YOU FINISH BUT “BORN SLIPPY” etc., etc. …

[Video][Myspace]
[6.50]

Kat Stevens: Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever heard such an accurate Underworld pastiche, right down to the monotone nonsensical lyrics (I remember reading somewhere that Karl Hyde got inspiration for his lyrics by writing down random stuff he saw out of the car window, which made me wonder if that was why Underworld provide such a good soundtrack for travelling). I wish this track had a better build-up though — the beat needs to come in about 30 seconds earlier than it currently does, and hence I find myself impatiently yelling at Delphic to get a bloody move on, which spoils my journey somewhat.
[6]

Tom Ewing: By the twentieth spacey repetition of “Let’s do something real” you’re thumping the hard drive and shouting “GO ON THEN” but there’s a solid electronic act somewhere inside Delphic that knows when to build and when to kick off. It’s a shame they insist on being a band as the dormouse vocals give you an indelible impression that “something real” probably means the washing up.
[5]

Renato Pagnani: It’s like they’re more interested in the theory of realness, some sort of abstraction of vitality, than actually realizing it in tangible, song form. They hover on the perpetual verge of realness, the tipping point of action, but they can’t seem to muster enough gusto to puncture your soul and take you over for five minutes.
[6]

Martin Skidmore: There is something in the restrained ineptness of the vocal and the early quiet beats that is like Underworld’s rare dull moments. What it doesn’t have: Karl Hyde’s inspired fragmentary nocturnal-city poetics, and especially Underworld’s power, grip and way with glorious transformative chords. Reminding me at all of one of the greatest groups of the last few decades is worth something, but despite a short section of punchier beats, this stays limp and lightweight throughout.
[5]

Michaelangelo Matos: I’ve never been a big “Born Slippy” guy or much of a trance-head either, but this isn’t a bad marriage, and I’m sympathetic to dance songs about trying to recharge a relationship.
[7]

Spencer Ackerman: It’s a disco song that thinks it’s a shoegaze song! Or it’s a shoegaze song that thinks it’s a disco song! Either way, it would be at home on AC 30 and that’s good enough for me. I’m a sucker for thought-out vocal patterns.
[7]

Erick Bieritz: For the first few minutes, the vocal work sounds dangerously non-developing and the whole affair is in Presets B-side territory. Then there’s that moment that always reminds me of a Richard X song where Tiga announces an unexpected rhythmic passage with simply the word DRUMS. In “This Momentary” it’s at 2:54 and it’s wonderful and pays back most of the rest of the song. Bring on the edits and remixes.
[7]

Ramzy Alwakeel: “This Momentary” stumbles approximately halfway into the realm of perfect autumnal electro-pop. The elephant in this particular room is the blundering attempt of the song’s lyric to reconcile the personal to the politico-aesthetic, whose over-designed artlessness threatens to derail the whole affair. With puzzling reflexiveness, however, these flaws of authenticity are also the song’s saving grace: by humanising the impossibly well crafted, they enable Delphic to inhabit, if only fleetingly, all the voices they invoke. It’s prodigious, but it’s nothing Bloc Party haven’t been doing with more tact for half a decade.
[7]

Martin Kavka: On its own, the song comes off as a statement of thwarted desire. Lover hurts beloved; lover begs beloved to come back and says “let’s do something real.” But we don’t know whether the beloved ever comes back. So when the song shifts from “indie” to “dance” as tribal beats come on the scene (presumably to signify “realness”), I half-suspect that Lover is lying to himself, and that dance music has become merely a way to repress loneliness. On the other hand, the video tells a far more hopeful story. Set amidst the ruins and expressionless faces of Chernobyl, it makes you yearn for something other than bleakness. And then, a full minute after the percussion comes in, we see a brief image of a girl hinting at a smile. The shot is perfectly timed. If it were any longer, I’d feel pulled into some utopian la-la land. If it were any briefer, I’d be depressed.
[9]

Ian Mathers: The video lends some real urgency to the song’s “let’s do something real” refrain, but the gorgeously overlapping construction of “This Momentary” and the track’s constant forward propulsion had me halfway there already.
[7]

Alex Ostroff: The drum programming and synth moves are appealing, but the build and release of electronica work best for me when they enhance the emotional push and pull of an engaging vocal. Suspended in a sea of atmospherics and emptiness, Delphic’s vocals might prove as entrancing as those of The xx (doubtful, but possible). In the midst of skittering drums and dance beats, they simply prove to be bland and meaningless.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Excellent mid-90s trance-dance-pop redux, though the floaty vocals are more empty naivety than profundity. Runs out of ideas about 90 seconds in and doesn’t quite maintain the interest by getting (politely) more frenzied beats, but diverting enough.
[7]

John Seroff: I found myself returning several times to “This Momentary”, a new rave lullaby that’s one part New Order and two parts Underworld with its soft approach, electronic echoes, oily promises of unimagined potential and climactic thunderous roiling beats. It’s not exactly outstanding, but its period-specific verisimilitude feels like a chunk of very specific 90’s history came home in the back of my brain. I can’t imagine it was intended any other way.
[7]