It Was All a Dream –  Jayne Gray (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

If you needed any more proof that music genres are a thing of the past then just listen to Heavy Fetish, well the e.p. in general but this track is a good place to start. Sitting somewhere between dystopian pop, industrial rave, future doom rap and electro-glitch, not that any of those genres actually exist, It Was All a Dream is an exercise in where we go next. At least in theory. Kicking down the barricades is the easy part, it is what you build from the wreckage which is the telling next step and Jayne Gray has created something that tells us a lot about where we come from musically, but as a signpost as to where things might go next it is truly fascinating.

Venus (Bleed Electric) is a skittering, warped mutant jazz-trip played via possessed synths and beats programmed by a madman and Fall In My Love (VIP)  is a squalling, screeching pop strut but what pulls the four songs that make up this e.p. together is her wonderfully detached voice, one that sits somewhere between that of a world weary human and a robotic entity that has managed to break its programming and is exploring art for the first time.

It’s a strange, challenging and ultimately beguiling glimpse of future and considering the production line dross and landfill pop that is currently cluttering up the air waves, it’s a future that can’t come quickly enough.