Electronic duo gets conceptual — and clubby too
Vancouver group’s new album mixes straight-ahead pop with synth sound
Vancouver electronic duo Bob Moses formed in New York City and quickly found an audience for its cool, detached noiresque pop.
Tom Howie and Jimmy Vallance earned a solid following for songs such as Tearing Me Up and albums such as 2017’s Days Gone By. The RAC remix for Tearing Me Up from Days Gone By earned the act a 2015 Grammy for Best Remix Recording (non-classical).
The followup Battle Lines homed in on a more standard song structure and reflected the full band format the group adopted for its tour in support of the release.
Now comes Desire, a concept record for a club as well as an icy cool single featuring ZHU.
The continuous mix of six new songs runs a range of surprisingly straight-ahead pop and the more signature trance-influenced synth sound.
Here are five things to know about the album:
1. Love We Found
The opening track is like two songs in one. The first 2½ minutes are textured piano and click-track pop with a dance edge.
Then everything gets turned on its head and morphs into a pulsing house beat with echoing percussion and bass notes firing off into all directions in sync with some imaginary strobe lights that conjure up immediately when you close your eyes. 2. Desire
Expansive and slow-building, the title track comes in with a chanted refrain that leads off the driving bass line that provides the foundation for a moody pop ditty that has a cool accompanying animated video to go with it.
3. Hold Me Up
The only short song on the album is kind of Moby-ish. It banks in with a chorus-laden hook only to slow down to a few whispered piano notes and washes of ambient synth at the closing.
4. Outlier
Someone telling you that less is more and that everything seems fine when you look in from the outside seems particularly annoying at this particular time in history. But there is a self-evident truth in the lyrics, particularly when the singer queries “is it contagious?”
5. Ordinary Day
Closing out the set, this tune is reminiscent of the sound of lateera Genesis as well as some of NIN’S mellower moments. That may sound like an odd comparison, but there is a pristine mix of both big studio prog and grindy industrial beats through the song.
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