Autumn is definitely here: the melancholy beauty of the yellow / red / golden colours and the creeping sense of dampness making indoors seem enticing. Appropriately Silverlake are back with a slice of their melancholy, contemplative pop for adults. Pop doesn’t have to be all Charlie XCX and youth’s overwhelming sugar rush of discovery y’know? There’s a need for pop for those who’ve experienced life’s peaks and troughs: heartbreak, loss, discovery, disillusionment, growth.
Just like the dark evenings creeping in, “X (I Should Be Digging)” comes in on the back of a sinister creeping synth loop that is joined by a pensive melody on what sounds like a dulcimer. This is given some energy by the addition of a pulsing drum beat that strides forward and a rhythmic guitar Happy Mondays-esq riff rings out throughout the song. Both of these give the music a smooth, gliding danceability. Singer Sally-Ann Parker brings her reflective, Roisin Murphy like vocals to add a warm human heart to the song’s hard pulsing. The chorus is lifted by a restless, bubbling synth line that’s almost like a slowed down, jagged Roland TB-303; the machine that makes the characteristic squelchy sound on acid house records. This sounds like one of those after it’s had a few drinks. However Sally-Ann’s vocal makes the song glide, lifting the chorus up to the transcendent: “I’ve been on my knees in the mud / I should be digging for gold” she sings to us. This lyric is emphasized in the striking video where she alternates gliding like a queen in golden train and crown and angrily brandishing a shovel while knee deep in mud wearing a dirty singlet.
This is actually a guitar focused song, despite itself; something early 90s Depeche Mode would be proud of. The looping rhythmic riff that drives the song, the tremolo guitar solo after the first chorus, and at the end a sneering, nasty guitar solo that sounds like barbed wire grates away underneath the song. It’s a bit like a swan – all elegance on top but with a churning relentless energy just underneath the surface. Just when it feels the vocal might be overwhelmed, a beautiful uplifting string section comes in to keep the melody company. All these disparate elements are mixed together so well that they end up complementing each other and combining, as ever with Silverlake, to beckon you towards the dance floor. This time for an eyes-closed, lost to the world, immersed in the music, kind of contemplative dancing. Or listen to it curled up with a contemplative cup of hot chocolate and stare out of the window at the leaves turning golden – it’s up to you.
By: Eastside Jimmy