Honey Lavender Girl / Star Killer  – Ender Bender (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

I guess the reason that so many people, especially in the pop and dance worlds, are referencing 80’s sounds, even if they don’t always realise it, is because that was a more pioneering time. Today, making music can be as simple as downloading samples, using technology to bend even the most lack lustre vocals into line and holding it all together with some tried and tested, out of the box, beats. Head back to that much maligned decade and things were a different story. Pop explorers, hip-hop mavericks, post-punk space cadets and clubland sonic adventurers, were not only creating new music, they first had to build the tools to create such radical new sounds. Broken keyboards were bent to their will, decks were rewired into new, more versatile platforms and past glories were cut and pasted into new forms.

And it seems that Star Killer, the first single from Ender Bender’s forthcoming ‘EQ’ EP, looks to such originators for inspiration. Technology may be on his side but it is clear as he revels in a cold, almost motornik hypno-groove, the chiming yet understated synths and world weary vocal tones that he is aware of where all this began. And cleverly it is also a song which resonates with modernity as well…contemporary but referential.

Honey Lavender Girl however is a sweeter, poppier and lighter affair, how could it be anything else with such a name? Touched with a sort of sixties perkiness, bathed in shimmering guitars and cheeky keyboard riffs, and making wonderful use of some great boy-girl vocal trades. Eddie Olguin, to give our artist his real name, wrote the song about those times in life when you just have to make the decision to walk away from situations, to be brave and clear-headed enough to realise that sometimes it is better to just start again than to try and fix things and that it is important to remember that it it is okay to allow yourself to be happy. In fact, that should pretty much be paramount in everybody’s mindset. And musically the song seems to oozes such a positive sentiment and do so effortlessly.

Taken together they mark Ender Bender out as one to watch. As adept at wielding a thought provoking and lyrically deep slice of dance-floor intensity as he is a perky, pop piece. Whatever will he throw at us next? ‘EQ’ EP is bound to have the answers.