Listen: Solomon Grey - "Electric Baby"

​Wedding recent trends of carefully textured laptop soul to an attention to tune-craft and melody that frequently goes missing in the often too theoretical revival of mid to late 80s RnB, “Electric Baby” is at once a sonic marvel (to be expected from this aesthetic) and a wholly compelling pop song. The song’s chorus unfolds beneath cascades of strobed keyboards, verses swing from airy open spaces to the clatter and crunch of skittering programming and decomposing synthesizers, yet the song’s melodies are never less than a match for the studio fireworks.

Splitting time between smoothly insistent falsetto hooks and wide stretches of fizzing electronics and ambient, washed out interludes, Solomon Grey recall the ultramodernist precision of Junior Boys (another duo who expertly balanced structure and detail without giving short shrift to either), echoing their sense of proportion and knack for late night pop reveries.

With “Electric Baby,” Solomon Grey have figured out how to make the avant-garde feel infectious.

‘Electric Baby’ is out on 16 June, taken from the duo’s forthcoming debut LP due in autumn this year.

Live dates:

May
16 May – Club NME, Koko, London
21 May – Gold Dust, Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, London
24 May – Love Saves the Day Festival, Bristol
June
11 June – Sebright Arms, London (Single launch)
21 June – Kitsuné Party, Village Underground
July
20 July – Latitude Festival, Suffolk