Sugar Man – Midniter (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

He cut his teeth on punk and rock and roll bands, dresses like a sleaze-rock 1970’s John Lennon, and makes music best described as synth-driven indie meets alt-alt-alt rock. Nic Pugh is a wonderful blend of forward-thinking sonic grooves and nostalgic moves.

I would say that he comes along as a breath of fresh air, but “Sugar Man,” his latest single as Midniter, wafts in accompanied by a wave of sleazy chic and drug fug atmospheres, the smell of sweat and pachouli. It’s the new glam, digital sleaze, techno trippy, a song about those vices and habits that are killing us day by day, and how eagerly we embrace them.

Spiritually, it is the successor to The Velvet Underground’s “Waiting for the Man” or “Semi-Charmed Life” by Third Eye Blind, sonically it echoes the aforementioned Lennon’s less polished post-Beatles output, or chart era T-Rex had they had access to synths rather than big guitars. It’s every bit low-slung and scuzzy, raw and spiky as any garage guitar band, and its dense, claustrophobic folds are sprinkled with saccharine-sweet pop accessibility. If substance abuse was a sound…this is it!

But in a sense, it is a timeless vibe: music made for the dark corners of nightclubs, the soundtrack to back-street deals, a litany to that inevitable day when you take things too far. It’s a loop that humanity has always been locked into, a dance that has been going on for as long as temptation has existed (that damn Edenic serpent has a lot to answer for) and what Midniter does here is create a scintilating soundtrack, one totally in step with todays music, whilst repeating those same words of warning, albeit in the language of today’s street wise droogs!

Go on, have this one for free, and if you want some more, you just come back and see me, right?

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