There were some raised eyebrows when New Order first rose out of the ashes of Joy Division to replace songs of existential angst with danceable beats. If you listened to the words, the doubts and anxieties were still there but since these were framed within a more optimistic sonic template they no longer sounded like a band with the weight of the world on their shoulders.
The change of direction was a recognition that there is only so far you can go with negativity before you end up musically adrift in a barren terrain. It reminded listeners that you can still gaze at the stars even when you're in a ditch.
The legacy of this kind of blue sky thinking can be heard in Wild Nothing's embrace of an optimistic feel good sound. Jack Tatum's third full-length builds and expands upon the intelligently crafted pop music of his first two albums.
“I desperately wanted for this to be the kind of record that would displace me”, Tatum says and has spoken of striving for a looser, more organic feel. The result is cleaner and more assured sound, a beautifully arranged collection of songs produced by Thom Monahan and recorded in Stockholm and Sweden.
This is summery synth-pop which is not afraid to be melodic, dreamy and even a bit cheesy. As a result, it is less introspective than most hazy shoegaze tends to be.
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Like a modern day Todd Rundgren style maverick, the range of influences he and his band bring to the table means that the album never seems stuck in a single groove.
We get some punchy Indie-rock in Japanese Alice and a slice of languid R'n'B on A Woman's Wisdom. The latter features the great line: "I don't believe in heaven, but baby you can be my church". Tatum's level of pop literacy enables him to seamlessly blend the serious with the sexy.
This musical cherry-picking also includes a variant of Philly soul on Whenever I while on Reichpop, he marries the marimba polyrhythms of Steve Reich to some bouncy Afro-pop. Best of all is To Know You in which a pulsing bass line combines with soaring Talk Talk-ish vocals to great effect.
All this makes for an inspired and absorbing record that many, myself included, will already be adding to their album of year list.
Wild Nothing's website
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