Scene and Heard – CCLXXXII: Holy Now – Wasuremono (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

You can trust Wasuremono to be both right on the current zeitgeist but still way out ahead of the pack when it comes to any video that accompanies their gloriously beguiling music. So only a day after watching Ready Player One I find my screen filled with retro gaming shenanigans and music which sits somewhere between 4AD style, shimmering, post-punk dreamscapes and strange futuristic oriental infused experimentation.

Something Left Behind, their most recent album that spawned this track, presented the listener with everything from groove laden alt-pop, to minimalist slices of musical understatement. Then again they have always been a band to cover a lot of sonic ground and Holy Now seems to encompass a whole swathe of what they are about neatly into one song. It plays with tribal electro-beats, ethereal and disembodied vocals, 80’s synth-pop lines woven into Vangelis-esque soundtrack vibes, brooding and ominous undercurrents and a wilful disregard for song structure and traditional pop penmanship. And if you can’t find something to love amongst all of that creativity and otherness, I would suggest than new music might not be for you and perhaps those Oasis CD’s were a good investment after all!