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10.10.07 |
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Shocking Pinks |
[music] |
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the aching deal & victims - 7" & 7" |
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dfa |
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The latest release of New Yorks leading hipster label Dfa makes me think about the general state of the so called alternative (or how ever you want to call it) music scene and about some not so subtle changes soon to come. You don’t have to be clever to be certain that the creative vim of dance punk has deflagrated over the last two years. While enjoying financial success, dozens of mediocre bands ripped of the formula and finally destroyed the new wave revival’s impetus. Nowadays everybody seems to call for a response to the watered down dance beats, the cheap synths and the uninspired yelps of skinny hipsters dressed as canaries. In this context it is interesting that dance punk’s innovators, the DFA, signed the Shocking Pinks, the brainchild of New Zealand’s Nick Harte. Sure, a certain influence of new wave is obvious in their songs. But on the whole the band is heading in a different direction. “the aching deal” is a beautiful, upbeat pop song, recalling The Smiths or The Cure as much as your favorite bedroom recording act. The lo-fi recording quality gives the song the charme of the unfinished and of the not yet planned out. “victims” is a fevered fuzz punk track, which is not denying its poppy undertones and which has the b-side “april may” as it’s complete counterpart. As a quiet dream pop song it contrasts the a-side’s aggression with warm melancholia. Both singles are examples for new paths (or, to be more precise: recovered buried paths) contemporary bands and labels pave, for escaping dance punk’s dead end. Time will tell how successful these attemps are. [phillip]
www.myspace.com/shockingpinks
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