Monday 21 October 2013

Fascinator - Girl I Want

Single review by kev@thesoundofconfusion.co.uk


We've had a year now of Fascinator, well, fascinating us with his unique and unorthodox (to say the least) videos. In fact, if you have a moment, allow us to direct you back to 'Sexual Mystery' and 'Mr Caterpillar', as well as the first track from current EP 'Earth', 'Upstream'. These will no doubt keep you entertained for a while, and the mysterious New York-based Australian serves up more mind-boggling eye candy for the visuals to 'Girl I Want'. This is apparently the video that's taken the longest time of all to create, and also the one that Lord Fascinator says he's most proud of. It's not quite as bonkers as some he's released, but it still beats the heck out of the current fad for promos that are deliberately so cryptic that their point is lost, or most likely, there was no point at all. Simply an exercise in getting you thinking about a puzzle that does't exist.

While this approach is applauded, we shouldn't let the music take second place here, and if it did then we wouldn't feature these songs. We're a music site after all, it's what we do. The primary reason why we're giving 'Girl I Want' a plug is that Fascinator's music is equally as interesting, if not more so. Here we get psych-pop, something not unexpected as there's so much of it around, but there's not much done quite like this. The big beats thump us through the intro to the song which is peppered by carefully chosen and carefully placed sound effects that mean you pick up new elements with each listen. The strange brass coupled with the cascading chimes is particularly good, as is the flute (possibly) that occasionally appears between the kind of sounds that R2D2 makes. Apply what you like to the track, but if the song is no good you just have a jumbled mess. 'Girl I Want' is far from a mess, it's cluttered in the way that a wonderful old bookshop or an eccentric's enchanting house full of the weird and wonderful is cluttered. Yet there's little old about this tune, it's another wonderful modern alt-pop oddity.



Fascinator's website

Stream the EP in full

Buy the EP

Catch him live:

Sat, Oct 26, PIANOS, New York, New York





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