🌭 MICHAEL O — YOUR WAY

There is something wonderfully intoxicating about this track, something mesmerising—maybe it's in the general uplifting atmosphere of the afrobeat wholesomeness of it, or maybe it's something more physical, in the cyclical three-note melody played throughout that draws you in like a hypnotic spiral, in the instantaneous get-up-and-move feel of the rhythm, the warmth of the track. It soothes and caresses, enlivens and boosts, feels like a 1UP, feels quaint and whimsical but solidly ready for dancefloors and poolsides across the land. Like an uncut gemstone, this is the unassuming beauty the herald of bittersweet emotion that is 'Your Way' by Los Angeles-based Michael O.

There is a delicacy about the synthetic bass sounds, something fragile there, the reverb gently whispering off each note as the sprinkling pings of the repeated melody, feeling like tiny instruments, continue in their happy splendour. The dancehall drums with their offbeat and their busy clacking shuffle suggest carefree movement, but the gradual warm synth that flows in and out like waves on a beach, there is a far-off brave acceptance of something adverse, yet that plinking melody remains upbeat—this is like the true tides of emotion hidden behind a cheerful personality. The tranquillising lilt of the vocals is like a lullaby, even with the autotune hardening the tone. An essence of a person, of an emotion, is in this track, like alcohol in a cocktail, sweetness and sourness and the inebriating feel, an effortless mix of many ingredients, of many feelings, that slides effortlessly into your soul.

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• 🔔 See Michael O's SoundCloud for more music.

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☟ Michael O Internet Presence ☟
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KALKO – I'M SO GLAD I FOUND U

If you waltz away from this song without feeling even a tiny bit of emotion – ok, even if you can discern the emotion in this, that's ok – but if you can't feel or detect a single thing either after or during listening to this… well, I don't know what to say.

It's not that this is dripping with obvious emotion, that it epically drops with standard sonic epithets, that it explodes with feeling. It's that it just touches the heart somewhat, and that is enough. "It", "it it it" – it is called 'I'm so glad i found u' and it is by a musicmaker called kalko who says they're from Texas, so let's go with it: Texas it is.

Anyway… 'I'm so glad i found you' is simple enough: a set of melodies, a bit of a beat. Simplicity and complexity doesn't really come into it when we're speaking about emotions – you hear, see, taste, smell, touch something and feel stuff as a result. That's how it is.

And that's how it is with the plaintive melodies of thanksgiving and innocent pleasure that swirl at the heart of this little song, which, beginning soft and muted, gradually become sharper, glittering, come into focus previously blurred, a sense of true happiness, body-warming gratitude sweeping through your soul, the skin-tingling shimmering-sun-dappled-through-bright-green-leaves feeling of utter contentment (see the artwork above; sounds like that).

Skiffly shakers and zipping hi-hats and scratchy snares and fuzzy kicks, a lo-fi beat that develops and grows as the song progresses, the sense of positivity expanding outwards and encompassing you, as you listen there from your laptop, aglow with the same feeling as kalko's track, ebbing away after saying its piece, not taking up all of your time: just stopping by to express happiness, ending beautifully.

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• Don't miss a free download of this cutely shimmering ode to warming happiness.

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CAPCHII – SOMETHING

Here is a nice new bit of music from a new musicmaker called Capchii. They are ostensibly from Tokyo – there's no way to verify that, of course, so let's just go with it. Tokoyo-based musicmaker or let's say producer called Capchii. The katakana given on SoundCloud for the name is カプチー, which I'm presuming is just a shortened form of カプチーノ which is the katakana for cappuccino. Coffee, especially in its foamier incarnation as denoted here, has a homely, cosmopolitan feel about it, and connotes being something like fluidly urban. Truncate cappuccino to Capchii and you add an extra dimension of cuteness – fitting for someone whose Twitter bio says "I like bass and cute music."

But aside from these thoughts spilling without much care onto this keyboard and typing these words, the morsel of music that has been created by this coffee-themed producer for a lil spotlight today is called 'Something'.

Something! Pulsing kicks drive this along throughout its duration, a bassy beat also featuring a combined snare-handclap that sounds like a watermelon being smashed, or maybe a heavy hardback book bellyflopping into a puddle, specifically a puddle glittering in the wet sunlight after a rainstorm. Bubbling sounds pop in the background. A simple looping piano melody, something unmistakably jolly and upbeat, is a sign of things to come.

Gradually other instruments join in to form a cavalcade of positivity; soft sub-bass begins to ebb and flow beneath it all, acoustic guitars play chirpy arpeggios, jaunty strings singing out, high pitched synth melodies intertwine with one another, weaving in and out like little birds zooming around together on a sunny afternoon, the inexplicable heavy haze of distorted guitar providing strips of abrasion here and there, which adds a confounding element to what is otherwise a lesson in the progression of different instruments in a semi-classical setting.

It's a compound of sculpted percussive parts and of whimsical melodies, resulting in a winsome piece of music with clear direction; seemingly untainted by genre or pretence, it's fresh and lively, like catching a glimpse of a small dog trotting happily along. Cute, but not obviously so – not the collective vision of cuteness, but a personal one, illustrated for our own hearts to enjoy.

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☟ Capchii Social Media Presence ☟
SoundCloud • Twitter

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FORK AND KNIFE – DUMFUN

I'm writing about this track because it is good and it made me feel happy when I first heard it. Maybe it's more that the track sounds happy and so swathed me in a metaphysical cloud of happiness whilst I listened, and also: is it even possible for any music to be qualitatively, objectively "bad"? These are my thoughts.

What is this track? 'Dumfun'. It's a fun name, isn't it? I don't know what it means, perhaps a neat contraction of a sentiment akin to "mindless fun" but what's in a name? Huh? What's in a name? Sometimes a lot, sometimes not so much. And it's by the well-named Fork and Knife (maybe named after the Brand New demo of the same name?), a musicmaker from London who is also a co-founder of collective/label Not Like That.

And you're wondering, what's so damn fun about 'Dumfun'? It's the whole journey, the whole humble odyssey of the track, that makes it not only interesting on a musical level but also, yes, a fun listen. It keeps you on your toes. Even after a few listens I'm like, "oh this part?" Its spontaneous structure is a good thing indeed.

It begins with squiffy far-off synths that equally could be the intro to some big trance song, yet it grows and graduates through glassy, popping decorations, adding big reverbing snares – rapid-fire droplets of which serve as ornamentations later on – and thudding kicks, then jumping up into a side-to-side head-tilt kinda rhythm; very bouncy, and supplemented with blooms of sub-bass. Cutesy synth vox spin simple melodies throughout sprinkled with wah-wah, and gleaming streaks of synth chords sweep steadily beneath, spreading their heartwarming glitterations alongside the occasional sample of children cheering, further exemplifying the feeling of joy that dwells at the heart of this track.

It's not exactly dancefloor-destined, not precisely pop, not wholly videogame music, but rather Fork and Knife has meted out a combination of all three. There are minor changes you could make to it to attach it more extensively to each one of those labels, but why think about that? Why think about the potential when it already exists in the state in which it exists: as a composite, genreless slice of electronic fun.

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• A free download of 'Dumfun' is available, if you clickety-click here.

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☟ Fork and Knife Social Media Presence ☟
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SUI ZHEN – MEGA DRIVE

Oooo-eeeeee, wow, so, this is supremely pretty. More than that it's scene-conjuring, evocative, heartbreaking, heartwarming, tear-inducing, smile-making – it's 'Mega Drive' by Becky Sui Zhen aka Sui Zhen (aka DJ Susan), a musicmaker and all-round atmosphere creator from Melbourne, Australia.

'Mega Drive' seems to call out from an unplaceable, nonexistent retro-futuristic crevasse deep in the music world – there is something otherworldly about it, a gracious gentle delicacy achieved by the mix of plaintive, unthreatening keyboard-demo beat and the endearing vocals, like insubstantial wisps of clouds making their way across a splashed-orange sunset sky, or like friendly ghosts trying to make contact. The very title is a conjuring of nostalgia: the Sega Mega Drive: symbol of lost youth for a generation torn between the analogue and the digital age.

Synth strings follow the vocal melody somewhat with effortless simplicity, still that beat gently blooping with its semi-tropical snips of sharp percussion, decayed bass rolling itself around the bottom end of the track with a reserved attitude, wobbling slightly like the blurred edges of memories that make you laugh and cry, the whole thing pockmarked with indistinct shouts of "hey!" rising up as if somebody's trying to wake you up from a dream.

The aesthetic Sui Zhen has employed here is one that seeps into your spirit, cradles your sense of self with a forlorn feeling, effuses the reverie of the past from a chasm of abstract memories. It's like… the sense of unutterable longing for childhood and all its beautiful accoutrements, its comfort and its wonder and the sense of time being elongated into a fantasy future as yet undisturbed and waiting to be discovered, happy days of innocence and simplicity. That's how I understand it anyway.

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• 'Mega Drive' is taken from Sui Zhen's very very recent EP, Body Reset, a beautiful collection of introspective songs much in the same vein as this one, exploring "the resetting of both body and mind" and "influenced as much by late nights in Koenji, Tokyo as at an onsen/sauna in the mountains of Nagano," and released by boutique Tokyo-based label eskers.
• Purchase Body Reset on tape cassette here. (Also, don't you just love the art? The green and pink colours go together just perfectly~).
• Sui Zhen was part of the Red Bull Music Academy in 2010, alongside Daisuke Tanabe, and has previously worked with Andras Fox as Sui + Fox.

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SPAZZKID – AT FAULT (FEAT. THERE IS A FOX) [FREE DOWNLOAD]

I love Spazzkid. How can you not? I mean, even as a person (called Mark Redito) he's really nice, so the fact that he makes really lovely music is a bountiful bonus if ever there was one. If you don't know this guy then, um, get to know: the best way is to trawl his Bandcamp page where you'll find everything from Early Demos (2004–2006), to the wholly immersive experience that was his album release of last year, Desire (願う). His lovingly crafted sounds ring with electropop, with chillwave, with J-inspired melodies, with footwork flavours and above all, with touching positivity.

I managed to miss the uploading of his latest track 'At Fault', however, but thanks to Oliver (s/o The 405) I heard it today and I knew instantly that I had to write about it and share it. This track is unique in that it features the cooperation and collaboration of fellow SoCal resident, There Is A Fox. Real name Hiro Makino, I wrote about him and his dreamily endearing brand of indie-folk-pop last Autumn, and was therefore pleased to find his sound and style permeating this song alongside Spazzkid. Beginning life as something that sampled & re-arranged a There Is A Fox original, 'Bad Day', it grew until these two artists were working alongside each other on the track.

Tagged "folktronic" I think this just about sums it up. Folk-pop guitar appears out of the void in vibrantly choppy succession with xylophonic sounds raining down in the slow sway of the song; by the end everything is jumbling together in a colourful mash of sound, from right down low with the booming bass and muffled kicks to the high registers of rattling percussion and looping guitar riffs. Vocals sing out innocently with lashings of dream-laden reverb, "It's not my fault…", calm in the zinging euphoria of the track. It is expansive, opening up as it goes along, evolving all the way, filled with wonderfully living-and-breathing organic samples and sounds residing harmoniously next to wholly electronic fabrications. At every moment it is endearing; did you hear the little cough/clearing of the throat at the start? Just another magic touch.

So there it was. Hoo-hah! It's lovely. I can't help but love it. I'm a fan. I hope you're a fan too. Fyi this song was supposed to feature on Spazzkid's upcoming EP (which I'm v excited for), but it grew and grew and, as he describes, "ended up wanting a life of its own. It stands for itself, pure and beautiful." Well well well indeed it does.

• Go and download 'At Fault' for absolutely nothing.
• Enjoy this little interview that Spazzkid was kind enough to agree to.

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Listen to Spazzkid on Soundcloud
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CASHMERE CAT – RICE RAIN

Hi it's Monday and urgh it's Monday but at least the sun's shining, at least the sky is pure blue, at least we're alive – here we are again. Another week. The cycle is a terrible one if you observe weekends, but perhaps I should stop observing weekends and then I wouldn't feel like I've just re-entered the Earth's atmosphere every damn Monday morning. Then every day could just be a nnormal day. But on the other hand wtf am I talking about?

Look, I heard this yesterday. Cashmere Cat – some of u reading this might already be like "whoa late to the party there yes/no where u been under a rock or some shit???" whereas others might be like "who's that" so I'm gonna side with the latter and just say whatever to the former. He's a producer from Norway whose real name is Magnus August Høiberg and he's basically a pretty big deal. Aside from that, check this song, the kinda latest one of his, taken from his Wedding Bells EP, released mid-Feb.

This type of music has undeniable appeal, it's overridden with happiness and sunny vibes – and I love that Cashmere Cat is already so popular, it's like a sigh of relief, because other types of what is essentially dance music are so much more serious and in-your-face and despite sounding as if they are made for a time and place are consistently blasted into your ears at all hours of the day by braindead radio stations.

On the other hand, 'Rice Rain' exudes the atmosphere of innocence and the fun of happy occasions in fluid instrumental surroundings; a regular dripping sound lends its inane glory to the track as it zooms into multiple drops, filled always with a tumbling cloud of percussion from 80s-style toms, trappish snares and claps and some metallic clacking too. Vox works its melody alongside cutesy synth and pizzicato strings, an officious yet carefree flight-of-fancy sound against the cleanly juke-flavoured backdrop.

And that's 'Rice Rain' I guess, I dunno if Wedding Bells is a concept EP or something but rice rain, well, you throw rice (at the couple?) after the actual marriage in a church don't u? It's out now on supernice Glasgow-based label LuckyMe, anyway (go here to see all places u can get it clickety-click). Do yourself a favour and listen to Cashmere Cat today, a lot of it.

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MIII EVERYTHING HAPPENS TO YOU

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL. What is a good way to start the New Year? With a list of resolutions and things to change about yourself, like some kind of end-of-year self-assessment? Maybe. I mean, it's not a bad thing to do; there's always room for improvement. One of mine will be to get up earlier. Because I woke up today on the 1st January 2014 and saw a glimpse of daylight – by the time I got to the window again it was dark. So I'm gonna wake up earlier. I'll have to hold me to that.

In other news, you could always just, I dunno, listen to a nice song that seems to be full of the promise of a New Year ahead, full of the potential and possibilities in each of these next few hundred days. Buuuut then again it's not so good to look far into the future. What is a good way to live, in that sense? Day-to-day? But then you like, can't have a calendar can you? What am I saying— this is nonsense. I've gotta stop and just introduce this song to you now.

It comes from Tokyo-dwelling 21-year-old Japanese producer called miii (real name: Mizuki Wada, who's also in band The Wedding Mistakes as well as being writer/editor for magazine, UNCANNY) and it is called 'Everything Happens To You' – whether that's in a positive-yet-envious or negative-yet-sympathetic sense, who knows, but it's certainly uplifting – it has an atmosphere to fit both a cathartic cure for being envious and a life-affirming pop of energy for those trampled by life's problems. It works wonders. Have a listen.

This is an genreless track in one sense, infused with things from pop, hip hop, juke, classical, but in another you can kind of rest it comfortably beneath the umbrella of Shibuya-kei and be done with it. If you're having trouble with it, that is. I know some people love their labels. But there are so many beautiful things in this song – from the eternal backing of an ever-so-slightly mournful organ to the occasional stabs of jaunty piano, to name just a couple. Then there's that plaintive flute synth melody running over the top – the song's refrain, and perhaps where most of its positive feeling comes from.

That's not all, of course. There's the indomitable beat, flying from here to there in maddening cycles of hi-hat fidgets, snare rolls and the odd woodblock tock, providing necksnapping bubbles of dynamism when it needs to. Then there's the vocal samples, which at times seem to follow the bass of the song (or vice versa) in a great partnership, giving it this gorgeously cute affiliation with harder, more urban music in an out-of-place yet genius stroke that often flavours this type of music. Then, and finally, there's the ending: squelching synth bass joins in with other sounds that appear out of the mix, finding affinity alongside the emotion-filled strings that rise up too; it's a whole mash of noises that suddenly fades into the winsome glare of the organ chords that led us into the song.

It's quite beautiful and it is the lead track from the EP of the same name Everything Happens To You, which is out as MARU-128 I-don't-know-when on the unique Japanese netlabel Maltine Records, who release everything on their site as a free download. On that note, I guess I should say that you can download one of miii's previous releases from Maltine, namely his Sunlight Disco EP (click!) if you want to.

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STRANGEHEAD ㄷㄹㅊㅅ (DREAM CHASER) [FREE DOWNLOAD]

For ease I am not going to be dealing with the Korean characters, although here is a fun fact: it's called Hangul and instead of being written straightforwardly, each word is a 'block' of these little characters. Isn't that fun? Someone should create some blocky typography of English in this way. It'd look nice I think. What am I saying? Who cares. The Hangul here - ㄷㄹㅊㅅ - if you want to know, is like an acronym or abbreviation, cause it's in letter and not word form, and says: d r ch s. DRCHS - a truncated form of Dreamchase(r)? I guess.

Anyway, in the depths of the night I found this song and I enjoyed it a lot so I am writing about it right now. It's probably really bad for LA trackmaker Strangehead because I'm writing about this in a not very good mood so I don't think I'll do the song as much justice as I normally would, however I do hope that you - whoever is reading, skimming, or ignoring this writing right now - enjoy the song no matter what gibberish I blather, what garbage words I tip-tap into this word box right here. Pls enjoy it. Let's call it 'Dream Chaser'.

Caught up as I was in the 80s synth dreamscapes offered by people's musical reaction to the film Drive and its College & Kavinsky-dominated soundtrack, the love of this type of music has never left me so the opening to 'Dream Chaser' is like a sudden step into an alternate world populated by electronic beauty and the tough undertones featured in games like Streets of Rage. However, this song is the kind of thing you'd hear once you've cleaned up the city in that game, don't you think? It begins as a foray into dubstep tinged by bleeping arpeggios and a smooth lead synth heralding good news.

Claps lead up to a lovely winding build-up awash with freestyle beats, snares roll and hi-hats buzz with insectoid surgicality, the second part of this song being marked by the fun vocal sample of "Readyyy... Go!". It's a plunge pool of low melodies bopping over wide Sonic-inspired chords, clean and smooth and delicious. A second "take-off" at like 1:38 sends us into fantastically happy world, where house piano chords stab and vox synth provides simplistic melodies (sounding like a K.K. Slider song from Animal Crossing). More dynamic changes - strings join the show for drama - claps in a frezy. Then everything suddenly fades out leaving you with candy-popping soft synth mixed with a pop song sample from where I don't know.

How nice was that? And with all the videogame references I've made it's clear that, whether intentionally or not, the often underrated, earworming videogame sounds have made their influence known. With the song levelling-up its atmosphere of fun and magic, the title seems very apt indeed.

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SAINT PEPSI UNHAPPY

Here is a song that I was supposed to write about like last week but Saint Pepsi (aka Ryan DeRobertis) decided to take it down soon after he'd put it up. It's called 'Unhappy' and I think must refer to end of summer. That's an assumption based both on the time of year it is currently - the end of summer - and the fact that the main hooks in his song come from an altered sample of a song called 'The Summer Ends' by an emo (yeah emo) band called American Football, who were around from 1997-2000.

And well well well. Firstly, how genuine to have sampled a song that isn't a hot pop hit, something of the moment, but something that was probably totally in Saint Pepsi's ears at some point or another in his life. That's a really nice touch. And from that you can I suppose infer that he's completely making the music that he wants to make, with no constraints, no box, no label (certainly not that of vaporwave), instead going totally on what he wants to do.

In this instance, the slow guitar arpeggios and unassuming percussion in the original become faster and get summarily glitched-out, along with vocals that are now nicely chipmunked, but not in a bad way - high vocals can of course go one of two ways, and this one has come out ok.

Alongside the magic of this sample - the strange nostalgia from a song I've never heard from a band I never knew effusing from its now-altered state - there's now chunks of smooth bass and a hip hop/I-guess-trap beat, in which much revelry seems to be had with producing joyful flourishes on the snare and hi-hat, making it a very energetic beat indeed. Some synth finds its way in there somehow, after the midsection of the song.

On the surface of things, setting a sample of an emo song to a down-south-flavoured hip hop beat is theoretical madness. Imagine that working. Well, it has, in this instance. It's worked very well. It's a multicoloured shower of candy, trap turned on its head, emo's frown turned upside down - yet in the midst of this subversion, there is emotion. Whether it's happy or sad is up to how you're hearing it, I suppose.

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LAMU BACK TO '92

There isn't a lot wrong with a little bit of synth pop. In fact, I quite enjoy it-slash-would be happy listening to only synth stuff forever (but don't hold me to that because I think I would actually be very sad without everything else, although you can do a lot with synth).

One particular variety that I enjoy is 80s/early-90s style synthpop that seems to be coming from, I suppose, people of my generation who had this sound on in the background - radios or whatever - in early childhood. Those are the formative years, and what you hear when you're younger, especially the stuff that gets a positive reaction from the adults around you, is very influential in later life. I think so anyway. Maybe I'm wrong. I probably/maybe am wrong so don't hold me to anything I've just said. Just consider it yourself and make your own decisions and do what makes you happy.

So here's an artist from Boston called Lamu who seems to be exactly one of these heralds of the not-forgotten-past that I just mentioned. I've chosen to write about 'Back To '92' because even in its name is this nostalgia for a simpler, more-colourful, fun time of life. Perhaps not even nostalgia, but just fond memories: even the smallest of happy memories can make you well up sometimes. Anyway, here it is.

Is it just me, or do those little organ-sounding synth chords sound a little bit (only a LITTLE) like they come from a Christmas song? In fact, I do believe that they are a tad similar to 'Last Christmas' by Wham! which I think illustrates my point: the influence from the past is clear. But whatever, the sound of this song is great - pure synth: some crunchy, some bassy, some high, some low. All of it is a bento box of synth. The chorus is also very catchy is is very good when it's a good song, like this one.

Even the verse has its melodic hook in the vocals, echoing away, describing things from '92 (presumably) that have sentimental value: Walkman, sitting in church, rollerblades, etc. It's a dream-laden picture of childhood, just like a soft focus hazy home video with smiling family and friends being silly together. Everyone looks at their haircuts or their clothes and says, "oh my - what was I thinkin'?!" It's that kind of scene that this song evokes and it's all the better for being able to do that.

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MAY.E ピーターパンはいないの [THERE IS NO PETER PAN]

The image there on the right should give you a good inkling of what to expect from this song. It's a silly picture. I like silly pictures. Cutesy and fun.

I can only guess that the girl who is lying down on the moon next to the astronaut is the person who I am currently writing about: may.e (sometimes meeshiieee). And you can rest safely because the same fun nature of the photo is in her newest song, the delightful 'ピーターパンはいないの' (Peter Pan wa inai no) - 'There Is No Peter Pan'. I hope I got that right? Did I? It's my best effort. It's honestly really fun to listen to - even if you can't understand Japanese, like me.

With bass that seems to pop out at you like bouncy balls descending a light-up staircase (you know, like those old-school light-up disco floors) and a toy-instrument honky-tonk wah-wah sound that jaunts around the place, the song instantly evokes something childish - but not in a bad way. I mean more in the carefree, innocent kind of way - and that is actually reflects everything that's said in may.e's un-characteristic hop onto rap (the majority of her other songs are kinda just her and an acoustic guitar).

It is just a generally "nice" sound, one that's perfect to listen to. The vocals in the refrain are really catchy, but I love her style of not belting the words out but singing them in a very laid-back way - the And, if anybody knows or has played the game Animal Crossing, you'll know what I mean when I say that the little wah-wah sounds in the breaks sound like a KK Slider session from the game. Love that.

And I suppose it fits. Having a look at the translation of the lyrics, may.e talks about how she'd rather sword fight than knit, how excited she is about the prospect of visiting Toys 'R' Us, watching Star Wars, playing Dragon Quest and Zelda and above all, wanting to be a child forever, yet accepting a happy future reality of having a family or something. A lovely sentiment, don't you think?

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GENERATIONALS PUT A LIGHT ON [VIDEO]

Sometimes all you want is a really upbeat vibe and a catchy melody - something that sits in your head all day, a happy little tune to keep you smiling. This is what I got as soon as I heard 'Put a Light On' by Generationals - a completely sunny sound that's kinda impossible to like unless you're a beastly person (apologies to those who don't like it).

I seem to be writing about a lot of duos recently, and Generationals is no different: Ted Joyner and Grant Widmer, of New Orleans, make up this one. And what lovely music they make! In fact, what lovely music they have been making - 'Put a Light On' comes from their third album Heza which is out now. Anyway. On with the music.

As I said, it's a really upbeat tune. The palm muted guitar seems to just exude a cheerful feeling as it bounces along jauntily - yay! The bassline that runs underneath also has positivity written all over it and locked in also perfectly with the beat that's a clap-along tap-along bop-your-head rhythm. Carefree vocals are drenched in lo-fi aesthetic, slightly distorted and almost replacing the sound of an overdriven electric guitar in some places - mostly with the falsetto singing.

And judging from the video, the message is indeed positivity. Or optimism. Six of one and half a dozen of the other.

See what I mean? The jingly-jangly underwater-sounding whatever-it-is hook is the bit that sticks in your head. Even as I type this now, I am hearing that tune - and it's definitely not one of those annoying tunes, the one's you wish wouldn't get stuck in your head. Perhaps this is down to how interesting the sound of that particular melody is, and indeed the sound of the whole song, in fact: smart pop, you could say.

I can imagine playing this at a barbecue. Or maybe I am fantasising about a barbecue. Happy future memories. And as far as happy goes, Generationals seem more than capable of taking that emotion and bottling it up in very pretty musical form. Hooray!

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