The Singles Jukebox

Dorian brings us idol pop of the non-metal variety…

[Video]
[8.57]

Dorian Sinclair: “Kimi ga Mune ni Gunshot” is a moment on the brink of collapse, impossibly spun into something longer. It’s held together by an icy, glitched-out synth pulse, rhythmically insistent but wildly destabilizing thanks to unpredictable metric shifts and increasingly frayed production. The voices may be hushed throughout, but the intensity builds relentlessly, until it finally shakes itself to pieces, dissolving into electronic noise. It may not have been the group’s final single (that was the excellent – and completely different – “Woot!”), but it feels like an ending.
[10]

Iain Mew: The perfect midpoint of Ichiko Aoba and Oxide & Neutrino, and also the sound of bringing The Knife to a gunfight.
[9]

Katherine St. Asaph: The makings of an electronic banger, except the energy makes quirky lateral moves in lieu of crescendos.
[7]

Jel Bugle: I like the sharp sounds and the quick glitchy beats and echos. The singing is cool — just repetitively chirping away. Good work focus music!
[8]

Ian Mathers: Right at the beginning I thought for a second I was listening to Flume/Caroline Polachek’s “Sirens” (which I underrated and gave an [8]). But as it goes on and the singing starts, it feels less like the whole thing is splintering apart like “Sirens” does, and more like something ragged but glorious is being shakily assembled. That singing is great too, and as an Anglophone who hasn’t looked up a translation, there’s something kind of neat about only ever recognizing one word throughout (and that word sounding appropriate for the musical setting).
[9]

Nortey Dowuona: The songwriter of this lovely song. Show him some love — anyone who can whip up a classic for near defunct deserves it!
[9]

Dave Moore: A remarkable idol song — has the melody of a much more straightforward song but in the production tries to find a midway point between gauzy hypnagogic pop and staccato hyperpop, and nails the balance. The effect is a banger put off at a distance, observing a bumping party happening through someone’s window while locked outside, but you’re not locked outside of the song; that’s what the song is about. So there’s a lonely little party out in the cold, too. 
[8]