Thursday 19 January 2012

The 2kDozen 500: #28 - Elephant, "Assembly" EP

Set adrift on synth pop bliss once again.

Well, bliss may be a little strong. The towpath is heavily worn; there's been a lot of traffic stumbling dazed along, folk carrying their glacial pop wares to market.


There's some good life advice here - "Don't dwell on who won't dwell on you" from the title track. Aside from that, I can pick out references to skeletons and rainbows and the tune broods in a pretty way, not too much turmoil - but that dislocated, medicated Sound of the Tweenies. (This decade's refusal to neatly line up into a handily historical decade label frustrates.) "Hopeless" doesn't really sound very hopeless, although the vocals have a sweet, monotonous quality that I quite like. I think it's more swooing love stuff - "Hopeless I know.. I can't hide from you." Awwhh. "At Twilight" (maybe sitting watching it in the pictures?) Pontefract/French singer Amelia Rivas (Liqourice Fields not included) moans "make me melancholy". Is this an attempt to bridge the gap from where they are to the feelings they want? Is that what pop songs always are?

So maybe it's that teenager-in-love-playing-it-cool situation then. The powerlessness (both in the ennervated singing and the amount and tenure of the lyrics) could be an interesting theme. Perhaps there's a thesis in there somewhere - Agency in Pop: The Language of Power in Tweenies Synth Pop. Perhaps not.

Yours continuing to fall between the stools of cultural criticism and wide-eyed "awh, shunks!" impressionist bullshit...

Rating: Icebergs out of Molehills

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