One Track Mind

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

[ download ]

Stockholm, Sweden duo Pallers describe their music as “dance music for the lazy,” and we’re hard pressed to come up a more apt encapsulation of their sound. Filtering Brotherhood-era New Order jams through a post-shoegazer lens, Pallers creates dreamy, electronic music with a pulse. Without resorting to piling on sonic layers, the pair crafts hazy soundscapes which are suddenly pierced by a drum machine or guitar riff, like ships suddenly appearing on a foggy horizon. Their latest effort is a two-track single, The Kiss, which was released on May 25th by their current home, the erstwhile Labrador Records imprint.

“The Kiss” spends most of its five and a half minute run time patiently cultivating a reverie of synth washes and digitally delayed notes, the backbone of which is a gentle but persistent arp line. Overlayed on this slow tide are ponderous vocals (“If it wasn’t a kiss / then I don’t know what it was”) and the glacial build up of drum machine tracks. The latter hit critical mass alongside more propulsive vocal and instrumental melodies about three minutes in, suddenly elevating the implied tempo closer to something countrymen The Sound of Arrows would rock. This duality helps lend a grace and flowing symmetry to “The Kiss,” a song which wins the listener over not with a rush and a push but rather by beguiling degrees.