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Spektrum "Cedar (The Heat Lodge)"

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Spektrum’s Fun at the Gymkhana Club is a dance record for patient people. It’s got all the parts necessary to get people out on the floor: slinky basslines competing for space with squiggly synths and paper-bag-lined drum machine fills, all coated with the alluring, pansexual croon of singer Lola Olafisoye, who manages to resurrect the growl of Grace Jones and use it for some of the naughtiest, sweatiest lyrics I’ve heard all year, from any band. But you’ve got to wait for it though; definitely more than you need to wait with quicker-payoff dance bands like CSS, Basement Jaxx, or even the Scissor Sisters. Spektrum’s coming from a similarly lusty place, but they make you work for the payoff: they have no problem issuing forth a straight-up nasty club banger like the don’t-play-it-for-your-mother “Don’t Be Shy” (which Matthew wrote up here), but they offer many more of the thoroughly ESG-influenced creepers (”Moody Feels Good,” “Sugar Bowl,” “The Bones”). But when they combine the fast with the slow, like on “Cedar (The Heat Lodge)” (mp3), they create an irresistable song that draws all of its energy from tension and release. One of the central thematic conceits of Gymkhana is the metaphor of spiritual transcendence through physical exertion, and “Cedar” takes that to its logical end, with the overbearing heat of the sauna as the trigger to surpass the corporeal, with all the effort coming from the inside. Olafisoye is “an athlete running for time” and “the tip of the iceberg” during her first verse, and is appropriately backed with a sharp, unforgiving, prickly synth line. But that just leads to the bridge, where she spawns multiple voices—an airy, icy soprano; a sex-starved whisper—before giving herself over to the song’s shouted, sexy, chorus/climax. And….repeat.

Buy Fun at the Gymkhana Club from Amazon UK here.

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