Oh Baby

This is the age of the shimmer. This is the rage of the glimmer. Cracked realties. Hacked frailties. Fracked personalities. If the malady resides within, the remedy presides herein.

On five-track mini-album, ‘Hey Genius’ duo Oh Baby (Rick Hornby and Jen Devereux) serve up an intricate, intimate, delicate future noise of (and with) past poise. Sleek and slinky technotronics propel these songs ahead, gurgling synths and post-punk guitars apply and supply the coordinates. A tower of power steering on a road to nowhere. Somewhere. Anywhere.

At times the album subtly recalls a cherry pick n’ remix of the leftfield tendencies of Lonelady, Goldfrapp’s glam-noir (‘High Teens’) and the heart-racing, pulse-rushing joie de vivre of 80s alt-popping analogue rhythm and hues (‘L.I.A.R.’ has echoes *cough* of Canadian new-wavers Martha and the Muffins).

Informed by a science-fiction conceptualism entwined with metaphysical perceptualism (cybernetics meets hyper-kinetics) the pair ‘look to explore the way electric currents work in conduction with human emotions and how these rhythms impact feelings’. Techno-static dancing to the noises between stations.

‘Cruel Intention’ articulates the rules of attraction and abrogates the schools of distraction. Beware the dangers of swooning for face value, the book cover may be misleading. Proceed with caution.

Standout ‘I need somebody to love tonight’ expertly straddles the psychic perils of the edge of the dancefloor with the psychological perimeters of desire. As Devereux flits between repetitively groaning, intoning and moaning the title (like a glacial Donna Summer) the mood changes from seduction to abduction. The act of distant preying (in)advertently enacting coexistent praying.

‘In her car’ is glorious goth-pop replete with Cure-like guitars and a throbbing electro-pulse, the motor-type of sounds that 40 years ago was big in America. Still could be. Should be.