In 2011, Drive was
released to huge critical acclaim. Utilising multiple underground 80s inspired
synthpop groups in its soundtrack, the film quickly became known as much for
its sonic landscape as its visual one. Forward to May last year, and the
opening of chiptune/80s electronic label Telefuture painted a clear sign of the
influence Drive’s soundtrack had,
whether it was directly responsible or a well-placed barometer in the middle of
artistic shifts.
The 00’s have been in throes of late-postmodernism
culturally, a constant churning mesh of nostalgia driven by patchwork
referencing and constant retrospectives. Hotline
Miami burst onto the indie game scene in October of last year, further
outlining this often-laboured point. Blending Miami Vice visuals with pixelated
Tarantino-esque violence, Hotline…
continued the trend of 80s inspired modern electronic music, causing, again
like Drive before it, as much respect
for the sonic as the physical, with artists like M|O|O|N and Scattle becoming
hugely revered as a result.
Fast forward another six months and Rico Zerone’s second
release for Telefuture, and ninth release altogether, continues this
retrospective obsession; that neon laced sound of palm trees and Miami nights (a
movement I’ve affectionately dubbed ‘Miami-House’). Thematically, ‘The Joy of Sleazy Listening’
covers a lot of ground, often more than its contemporaries. ‘Apéritif’ has an
ocean freeform funk, ‘Too Late’ a near waltz serene flow and ‘Eyecatcher’ is
all calypso tinged health and safety video vibes. It all adds up to a rose-tinted
view of music’s past and its involvement in the present, a continuation of the
Miami-House canon, and one Rico Z has breached countless times before, but
never so valiantly.
Now, for some actual grit on the release: whilst as a whole
the music is fantastic, it is also unmistakably cheesy, sometimes so cheesy it
made me feel physically ill. That criticism aside, if you can get over the primary
nausea, underneath is a selection of outstandingly composed tracks covering a
huge range of emotions and genres (in fact the aforementioned Miami-House title
doesn’t do the scope of this EP justice). Whilst ‘Charisma’ is too sickly sweet
to stomach and ‘Solitary Dance’ quickly becomes tiresome, the other six tracks
are all fantastic.
The reason for my opening and extremely strenuous point
concerning the not-so-new-but-increasingly-focused trend of the Miami-House
sound is this: ‘The Joy of Sleazy Listening’ sounds like the next stage in the
movement’s evolution. Whilst before the Rolly Mingwalds and Jasper Byrnes of
the world seemed content with mere funk and disco foreplay, Rico Zerone has
dived fully into the genres of the past, surfacing with an ample collage of the
70s and 80s, and hopefully Rico’s deviation is a sign of coming progressive
regression. Should you listen to this album? Yes. Soon it could be a definitive
statement of a quickly expanding ideal, and even if it’s not, at the very least
it’s an extremely potent example of postmodernism working to the advantage of
the listener.
Favourite Track: Too Late
