Capitol K - Notes from Life on the Wire with a Wrecking Ball

Fusing upbeat electronica with harder percussion and soaring melodies, Notes from Life on the Wire with a Wrecking Ball is at once a beautiful piece of pop music, and a detailed portrait of a myriad of musical influences. Capitol K builds layers of chattering laptop melodies over curiously restrained vocals on opener Diamond Skys (sic), before cutting loose on the energetic Go Go Go, and chanting the title. It’s a reference to the beat poet jams, but Notes also takes in tropicalia, acid 303s and Kafka’s Metamorphosis, uniting them all within the psychedelic pop of The Kinks or the Beach Boys. Whilst it’s clearly designed as a cohesive whole, Drum St and Bomb Bomb are beautifully sing-along, and far superior to the majority of pop songs clogging up the charts. Notes is an addictive album that grabs the listener with catchy riffs, yet reveals layers and layers of detail over every repeat play. [Liam Arnold]