Holiday Party: Holiday Party | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- I’m a little late getting to the party here, to shower praise on the boutique pop project of Mel Tickle and Luke McDonald, that is, Holiday Party. The veteran Brisbane musos have been doing quite a bit of business with the songs of their latter-day project (did they win Bigsound? Is that a thing, can you win Bigsound?) and now those songs are all together, forming quite a record.

There’s quite a lot that’s in there under the hood, for a pop release, or really for any release. Clearly Luke and Mel are the kind of artists who listen to other artists and they’ve worked that learning into what you hear here. Specifically they give shout-outs to The Avalanches, J Dilla and Beach House - which is quite an intriguing list. It shouldn’t be a surprise that that’s how it comes together: intriguingly! The warm boom-bap favoured by Dilla is there and so too is the euphoric instrumental electronica that The Avalanches transformed that sort of thing into and it’s ruled by a pop smooth, rich, pop sensibility which definitely gives a nod to Beach House, but, let’s be fair, also must owe a bit to the storied indie pop history of Mel and Luke in Little Scout and The John Steel Singers.

Such a range of sounds (and there are still more than those mentioned above) combine in permutations that are more than the sum of their parts. Am I the only who’s transported back to the sunnier side of the triphop of the ‘90s? I mean, Massive Attack this ain’t, but echoes of Morcheeba or Groove Armada abound. Really it feels like a bit of a trip into a lot of pop history, there are ‘80’s Madonna-ish highlights and even a bit of ‘70’s disco Donna Summer. I guess we’ll leave the ‘60s, ‘50s and ‘40s for the sophomore follow-up?

Lyrically there’s a bit of a strange disconnect. So much of this warm, sparkling debut is dedicated to songs about interpersonal dysfunction and relationships failing, even as they seem to grind on forever  “I, you, we’ve got no chance of making this work!” sings Tickle with such sweetness on No One. Such sentiments are everywhere: “I want to have something that’s not wasted on you” she bells on the very next cut. I’d really like to know how such emotional trauma came to be paired with music that is so clearly in love with life. Perhaps there’s a new romance (or antidepressant) which they didn’t have time to tell us about after getting all the angst off their chests. “You’ve been left out, honey, left out” Mel pouts on the track after that.

This doesn’t feel like the work of a duo and in many ways it isn’t. McDonald brought his JSS bandmates Peter Bernoth & Scott Bromiley along as co-writers while the team behind the boards is no slouch, with Miro Mackie doing the mixing and Jonathan Boulet (whose touch turns things to gold) poking his head in to do the mastering. Every song here is multi-layered and lush. More importantly though, it's dynamic, easy, never overwhelmed by all the ideas at work. There might be a lot of science that went into making this pill, but it goes down sugary sweet and silky smooth.

Really, it’s no secret, I’m just repeating the plaudits that’ve been laid on Holiday Party by everyone else. I think another reason I didn’t get around to writing about them till now is that I was too busy listening to their record on repeat. That’s something you should do too.

- Chris Cobcroft.
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=3719120966/size=large/bgcol=f…; seamless><a href="http://holidayparty.com.au/album/holiday-party">Holiday Party by Holiday Party</a></iframe>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uiTwF1JSJW4" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>