- Scottish trio Young Fathers have consistently made weird and wonderful music. They’re a band who act with an openness towards writing songs with an immediate sense of modernity. It helped them to win a Mercury prize for their debut album DEAD whilst simultaneously creating confusion for those who have trouble navigating the shock of the new, in that their sound refreshingly encompasses popular music’s many elements and isn’t readily pigeonholed. Two mixtapes, two albums and a slew of free-flying singles has tangled them up in tedious tags like alternative lo-fi RnB. Ultimately, it’s pop and their third album Cocoa Sugar is their kind of pop at it’s most polished.
You would only have to listen to the leading singles to accumulate enough knowledge on how these three operate. Essentially, it’s all about juxtaposition: exultant pop melodies set against acidic bass in Lord; the soberingly humane themes of In My View; supported by the de-tuned apathetic warble of synths that you’d usually associate with drugged out rappers. Their third single,Toy, is the most curious and the greatest example of Young Fathers to date. Its twisted Hot Chip groove and resolute don’t-look-back treatment of song structure and one’s self worth is as experimental as it is affecting, plus it’s catchy. Work backwards from here if you need to but understand that Young Fathers are really consistent in their self-proclaimed white boy beats / black boy rhythm dynamic. An avant pop.
The fluent positioning of their punk with their pop is further evident in the track listing: slick electro opener See how is followed by the dull-toned, dark incantations of Fee Fi into single In My View and onto Turn’s screwed intro. This to-and-fro holds consistent drama but their inventive approach to modern song negates any sense of whiplash. They’re masters at generating equal amounts of intrigue and fun.
This album accomplishes something similar to Seaford Mods: there’s a creative defiance and a compassionate authenticity executed simply and simultaneously. It follows on from The Ramones distilling suburban malaise and setting it to a quicker Barbershop hustle. And, it displays a comparable ingenuity to that of Talking Heads and how they developed their art-school funk by cutting up their previous feeble attempts. Cocoa Sugar sees Young Fathers secure their place as artists with a fine-tuned sense of form and function and succeed as contemporary artists reflecting, and lifting, us as a whole.
- NJR.