Channeling latter-day house music with a memorable but not altogether placeable syncopated synth hook, 26CARAT induces you into a world where noise crosses with dance. By noise, that's not murdering analogue machines-type noisy but more noisy—sounds merge together in a whirl of reverb, elemental intensity and a clattering collage of percussion. In this regard it's a dreamy affair, nebulous and floating. And dance? It's that sort of dance sound that's not quite old enough to be classed as retro and not new enough to be wholly fresh or widely followed, that late-'90s-early-'00s sound that teeters on an edge between forgotten and rediscovered. In this way, 'See Through You' has the same feeling as Pictureplane's 2011 album Thee Physical, brimming with that sense of something memorable but unplaceable, pop crossing with outsiderism, the past dredged up to build the future.
But here there is something more delicate at work. Dreamlike and hazy, this thin atmosphere pervades the whole track, trickling through and whirling around, those previously hard bassy notes that made up the melodic hook now watery and delaying into the icy backdrop, melding with the airy croon of the vocals, breezy-ghostly electronic arpeggios, and beneath all this a single column of synth modulates bubbling with digital menace. And with this a tract of intricate percussive elements skitters and tumbles throughout, plosive drums popping abrasively, kicks thud-thudding rapid, wreathed with the shh-shh-tick-tock of hi-hats and attenuated snare sounds. Yet in the wake of this pastel partnership between 00s euro-dance and dream-pop, there is a considered aggressiveness here, a hardness, more a nod to trap-ish vibes, something that keeps things from being over polished and confined and instead allows the song to spill over the edges and scribble outside the lines: a slack, smart cocktail of our eternal today.
- 🔔 'See Through You' is downloadable for free and you can do so by clicking this link right here.
