Amazing Baby : 'Headdress'
Released: 8th June 20009
Label: V2 / Co-Operative Music
Every now and again something amazing happens and you come across a song destined to be "the next best thing" and it opens you up to a whole new world of smugness. You'll strut up and down the street with it blasting in your earphones smiling benignly at the serfs ignorant of the musical rapture you've discovered. You shrug off their looks of disdain and mumblings of "prick" because you know when they eventually get to hear it they'll see you again and look at you with faces full of respect and wonder because obviously "You knew". Better than that you take your glorious discovery to a party and discreetly slip it on when no-one is looking. A lingering hush of appreciation ensues before wanton cries of "Who IS this!?". You nonchalantly reel off the information. Your enemies are struck dumb. The object(s) of your desire immediately drag you to the nearest bedroom. At least that's what I've been fantasising about since hearing 'Headdress' by Amazing Baby.
Amazing Baby come from the fertile band scene of Brooklyn, New York, the home of fellow too-cool-for-school rockers MGMT. The two bands have more links than a hometown though; being old university drinking buddies MGMT have taken Amazing Baby under their wing by picking them as a favoured support act. With such pedigree chums you expect good things from Amazing Baby. Well don't. Expect the absolutely stonking if new single 'Headdress' is anything to go by.
"So what does it sound like?!" you rabidly demand. That, dear reader, is none too easy to define. If I told you that there's Will Loan purrings of lust draped over an electro-funk bass line, copulating drums and pedal-heavy guitars you'd think so far so standard. But combine that with Simon O'Connor (part deux of the dynamic duo) channeling the spirit of a pair of duelling metal guitars and a distinctly ambient house background to it all and you'd think I've gone all Susan Boyle and started eating crayons. But, like a Heston Blumenthal recipe, it sounds like horse shit on paper but the reality is something truly special. The overall sound is like Kings of Leon in the act of frantically conceiving a love child with Roxy Music. In a threesome with Suede. With Iggy Pop watching from a darkened corner. A veritable Roman orgy of influences that create something breathtakingly different.
An orgy is more than an appropriate metaphor for this song too, because 'Headdress' is a song of sex, pure sex. By the time Loan's rohypnol laced tones and the hip-thrusting rhythms have faded away you'll be all clammy and out of breath, craving a cigarette and wondering what would have happened if your mum walked in. You'll be riddled too with the infectious chorus ("Cause we make love like each other/ We get mad at each other/ We were made for each other/ But grew up differently") with the soaring guitar riffs leaving their calling card too. No need to worry though, everyone will be getting it soon. Make sure you're the first though, so when they do you get to tell them "I told you so". Apart from me sucker, 'cause I told you. Who says a bit of smugness isn't worth a couple of black eyes?
Words: Harvey Ovenden
Write a comment
- Required fields are marked with *.
-->