Listen: Mysteries - "Deckard"

13 August 2014, 09:55 | Written by Russell Thomas

(Tracks)

(Mysteries)

Anonymity is your friend. If you’re the one being anonymous, that is. It means you can pretty much become a star of the internet, be Tumblr-famous, Twitter-famous, get that celebrity buzz (if there is one?) without the IRL drama and fuss. It’s a win-win. And of course, you can make whatever the hell music you want to make without worrying that your mum or your boss is going to see it and think, “Jesus, what on earth is my lovely child / diligent employee doing with their free time”?

And if you’re going to do it, why not call yourself Mysteries? That’s what Mysteries did. They’re a mystery – or since there are three of them (masked), I guess they really are plural proper noun Mysteries. No names, no location, no nothin’, just one song named after Harrison Ford’s hard-boiled cop character in Blade Runner, “Deckard”, and since I’m a journalist and I went to journalism school and I’m freaking out that I’ve missed out my who-what-where-when-why’s (hyper-fucking-ventilating right now), I’d better just have a look at the music.

The track is entirely subterranean, a neo-noir soundtrack to spelunking in some abandoned sewer, or venturing into a sludgy underground club – it’s as majestic and flighty as it is scuzzy and disgusting. The drums are totally Bowser’s Castle, scratched and punchy in a fit of 80s metal aggression and exhibitionism, the track’s extroverted bedrock carved also by bass squelch, supporting the constant urgency of synths in eternal stutterment, the vocals with their crypticisms and harmonies, the squeals of a melting-computer solo towards the end. This is pop for maniacs.

It’s from their aptly titled upcoming album New Age Music Is Here, due 28 October on equally and fittingly mysterious label, Felte. Order it here.