Desire

One of the blessings of recording music through an independent label, apparently, is the intimate camaraderie and collaboration between band members. This is certainly true of Italians Do It Better, perhaps my favourite new dance label. Producer Jimmy Jewel performs not only with Chromatics and Glass Candy, both of whom have released work through the label, but also with Desire, a new project he formed in Montreal with vocalist Megan Louise.

Desire's debut album, II, released 23 June, echoes the aesthetics of Jewel's other projects, offering understated, mysterious female vocals atop soft, pulsing rhythms and glimmering instrumentation. As if eschewing the discordant, broken-record barrage of more hardcore styles of dance music as well as the abstract, remote peak-and-trough wave structure of progressive trance, Desire embrace a classic verse-chorus song structure, strong melody, and alternating hooks; through this technique, they manage to avoid the inane simplicity of cheap, dust-bin electro or American Top 40 pop as well as the boring, burdensome complexity of more conceptual works in experimental music. A prime example of Desire's ear-catching motifs is the chorus to the infectious Miroir Miroir, a glowing masterwork of nu-disco which carries a simple refrain by relying cleverly on lines from a widely known folktale recorded by the Brothers Grimm: "Mirror, mirror on the wall / Who's the fairest of them all?" The coy lyrics combined with eerie, numinous background strings offer a dark yet playful commentary on vanity. A similarly tongue-in-cheek effect is achieved in If I Can't Hold You, which sets a frolicking bass drum to a melancholy requiem for a dead lover.

II's pop sensibility offers a refuge from more wearisome, "progressive" styles of music--a collection of catchy and accessible yet moody and sophisticated songs which are equally delightful to sing to, dance to, and ruminate on. It is a pleasure to discover yet another band (and I expect even more from Italians Do It Better) who reject the artificial division between traditional, poetic song structure and dance-friendliness, recognizing that the combination of these two only doubles the pleasure. The highest art, in Aristotle's view, combines a comical overtone with tragedy lurking at the core. In this way, Desire craft songs which show human warmth, thoughtfulness, and physicality while preserving the eccentricity and spontaneity that define dance music.



Image ©2009 Italians Do It Better