i’ll be honest, when i saw this email drop in the inbox, my inner-bots hardly registered the situation at all.
never cared for everything but the girl in either of their guises, whether the fey indie pop of the early years, or the coffee table sanctioned dance era i rarely felt any passion towards the bands efforts.
of course, i am aware that in recent times ben watt has had a reappraisal of his musical styles, and has been the driving force behind the growth and growth of the buzzin’ fly label.
thankfully, something made me open the press release and have a read, and it was at this point the following sentence made me sit up and take note :
"and it was only through a recent total rejection of his normal working methods was he able to restart again.
shutting the door on his studio of thirteen years, he went back to basics with an old akai sampler, a couple of vintage synths and a basic sequencer."
so, i pressed the relevant buttons, and voila got to hear ben’s first proper single release in 3 years.
and i’m rather glad i did, as guinea pig (in both its vocal and dub version) is a gorgeous slice of minimal tinged electronic pop, that’s deep and sensual, with simple but very effective synthetics, heart warming emotions and atmospherics, and a floating vocal line by julia biel.
all of which results in a 7 minute track that happens to be a perfect slice of electronic pop that can make the stresses of the modern world feel that little bit more distant.
all in all, if this were to be dropped while i as on a dancefloor, i’d be a very very happy man.
more detail : here