If pop music often comes with the tag throw away and modern indie has become anything but independent being more concerned with the fame game as its denizens sport complicated hair and just the right brand of skinny jeans, then we obviously need a better label than indie-pop for Michael Cykoski’s mercurial A is for Atom.
Whilst both those genres do compete for space in the sumptuous textures of Rainbows, what really defines the song is an integral intelligence, the clever sonic choices and an elegant and understated approach. Pop? Yes, there is definitely pop infectiousness in its minimal majesty and dynamic play. Indie? Certainly, but more of the sort which defined the exploratory early years of the genre, spawned by the freedom of the post-punk independent label explosion and the new technological toys available to those bored with guitar led music.
Rainbows also plays with chilled future-dance, film score drama, the more accessible and human end of Krautrockery and a drifting nu-New Romanticism if there is even such a thing. How Michael Cykoski manages to cover so much territory with so few musical building blocks is still a mystery to me but then if it was easy we would all be doing it…or at least trying to write about it.
