Muscles - 'Sweaty'
Sweaty? At this time of year, not likely. My housemate's operating system informs me it's about two degrees outside and my rapidly discolouring appendages tell me that operating systerms don't know anything about temperature; there's less chance of me sweating right now than there is of me sprouting wings. Actually that's not true, there's a blimmin' great hill outside my house that three years of walking up haven't conditioned me to but anyway, without hideously strenous terrain, this isn't exactly the sweaty season.
With a name like 'Muscles' and a song called 'Sweaty', you could easily imagine this is one of those comedy dance records along the lines of Sunblock et al that are mostly a vehicle for a lot of scantily-clad ladies to flounce around covered in baby oil. As it happens, this isn't. Muscles is a sort of avant-garde dance artist from Australia, not entirely unlike Midnight Juggernauts in terms of sound (judging by this, at least) and vaguely in the same school as Cut Copy. You know, dance music that's vaguely indie.
According to , 'Sweaty' started off as a jokey song, based around the revolutionary idea of having a good time at a club. According to that, he spent three months mixing the track to try and get the vocals right, which is a slightly odd idea given that the intention here appears to have been to create a kind of brainless house record but possibly they take a lot more work than you'd realise.
I kind of like it, in the end. There's a good bit in the chorus where it starts sounding a bit like 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' and the "my hand slipped into your hand and it was awesome and you were special" lyric is adorable. The song itself, though, is a bit of a mess.
The vocals jar horribly with the rest of it and manage to prevent it becoming an arms-in-the-air danceathon that the instrumental could be (in a sort of Space Cowboy does Prince way) and ultimately, they're fairly irritating, sounding grating in the foreground of an otherwise interesting piece of music. Like Muscles didn't quite have the guts to just release the music, so covered for his nerves by mucking about on top with some semi-comedy vocals. Which is a shame.
It's not bad, it's not great, it's not loveable but it's not wholly detestable, either. In other words, it's that MOR ground that the dance/indie genre generally populates. It's alright, I might dance to it if I'd had a few and the speakers were a bit distorted so I couldn't really hear the vocal, I wouldn't rush out and buy it and hail it as a work of genius. I feel like maybe I should mention the wonderful bit in the instrumental part where it gets really heavy for some reason about two minutes in or the fact the lyrics are either sleazy or rather sweetly low on self-esteem ("I'll touch you if you'll let me") but to be honest, the parts don't make the sum well enough to really make that kind of observation worth making.
Two stars is a bit harsh, given I do like bits of it but at the end of the day, it doesn't really work. There's promise and it could be ace but it just turns out frustrating whenever the vocal cuts in and seems to be smartarsing all over a relatively decent song. If he does an instrumental mix, it'd probably double its rating from me but as it sits, it's nothing short of annoying.
Download: Out now
CD Released: January 7th
(Hazel Robinson)
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