Normally a CD EP is not something worth taking the time to put into the computer (which happens to be the very last thing capable of playing those silver discs in most houses), let alone rip them to a hard drive, then add to the library and onto an iPod. But the Do U Party? EP from Honeydrum that comes bundled together with their 7" vinyl single makes for a damn great eight song mini-album, and if you need to jump through hoops to get it on a format you’re going to regularly listen to… well, so be it.
Honeydrum is essentially pop music, blindingly catchy damaged beyond all recognition pop music, with a dizzying array of commercial references. A warbled melody that’s been unearthed and transferred onto an eight-track after being buried underwater for decades. It’s got no business being on the lossless digital CD format in the first place. The layers of garbled synth come off like some half remembered dream, the whole composition is a brilliant fog of genres. There isn’t a single note that doesn’t have something deliberately flawed about the way it was either played or captured, it’s an integral part of the sound and that’s what makes this so interesting. You can imagine the adding and subtracting of sound, sometimes completely at random that would take the song in an unintentionally amazing direction.
You could chalk this up to thirty-somethings increasing obsessions with anything artisanal or handcrafted in small batches, and this idea is carried over into these textured, faded Polaroid – sorry, Hipstamatic – sounding tracks.
It would be remiss not to mention the current star of this nostalgic anti-cool, Ariel Pink (QRO live review) – and the most impressive thing may be that Honeydrum is absolutely matching the timing of his manipulated rhythms and melodies strewn across any given track. While it’s impossible to break down the instrumentation into individual pieces, a big part of listening to this EP is just giving in to its subtle madness. A lack of structure at times can feel disjointed or even like it’s falling apart, but in that way they might even be coming up with a new way to listen. Multiple AM radio stations playing different versions of lost Nik Kershaw demos are somehow syncing up in an old empty roller skating rink.
Like the rest of Honeydrum’s tracks on this EP, "Girl On the Radio" is an approximation of a slick, Top 40 pop song. From the cheap drums and amateur sounding loose guitar, covered with an early ‘90s ethereal Cure chorus sound, the song is caught in that great place of never quite reaching what it’s modeled after. The vocals are buried under layers of themselves into an off sounding choir or an abstract impression of lead vocals rather than the real thing. All of these half resemblances add up to something infinitely better than what it was consciously trying to be in the first place. Like in "VOICEMAN", which captures in sound and atmosphere the entire Pretty in Pink soundtrack in a sincere, genuine homage… an impossible feat.
Honeydrum is somehow referencing an entire spectrum of popular music, creating impressive mash-ups of style with complex melodies running into each other. What’s even more impressive is I’d be willing to bet they weren’t even alive in the 1980s.
MP3 Stream: "Do U Party?"
