caribbean gold

****

There is a lot to like here, especially if you like your dreams electric.

Rolling bass, walls of synth pads, electric hand-claps, TR-808 beats, oscillators arpeggiators and big choruses – this is the sound of 1983 synth-pop; Duran Duran, Human League, Howard Jones, maybe even Dépêche Mode (when they were fun), Tears for Fears, Pet Shop Boys … I could fill this review just with the references.

The songs are well-constructed and deceptively complex. The production is brilliant – bright but with the detached emotional coolness that characterised the new romantic sound of English music in the early to mid 80’s.

This music does not seem to be ironic – it is not pastiche. Given the success of MGMT and Daft Punk it is apparent that the awkwardness that Generation X feels about the 80s (having been there) is not shared by Gen Y.

The seven songs presented here make me ponder whether pop really is eating itself. For the last 50 years we have seen bands plunder previous decades – reinterpreting sounds for the next generation of listeners, resurrecting genres thought long dead.

I wonder if rock’n’roll has gone the way of classical music where the genius resides in the past and the art is in the interpretation and faithful reproduction of the sounds of the classics.

If that is the case then World Wild are to Georgio Moroder what Glenn Gould was to J.S. Bach.

Electro-genius.
 

Also printed in Bside Magazine 11 June 2015

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