Reprise the fifth finds us reminiscing a refined yet robust vintage in the realm of red head redemptive rebirthed cool … in conversession with an unforgettable late-aught synthpop debutante canon … so with that, and without further ado: la roux … and and, as always, of the course : cheers — enjoi

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:: Vintage Reprise :: re:code.fm : La Roux’s La Roux (2009) [ fr. unforgettable, vol. 18: la roux – la roux ; 08.02.10] ::

… The definition and the uncertainty, the independence and the co-dependence, La Roux lives acutely in the ambivalent juxtapose.

“Tigerlily,” finds Elly Jackson’s vocals playing rhetorical recess in the realm of self-dialogic – verses anchored in aggro tonality:

They can sell it all they want, but you cannot agree; I don’t like the taste of their morality. You’ll find your bread and your butter where you fake it, and put your face in the gutter of a snake pit …

sparring in magnetic caprice with a more sibylline chorus:

And in the crush of the dark, I’ll be your light in the mist; I can see you burning with desire for a kiss – Psychobabble all upon your lips.

The underlying DnB pulse bolsters heavy parallel to erstwhile staccato snares and splashes of synth fx. “Tigerlily” echoes compass guidance as directive perspective by way of locus motif; it is hard and soft, active and passive … as Jackson states, in a most-gelid tone, “our communication is telepathy,” it’s as much a reflection of the artist, as it is their audience; in an age where banter is everywhere, perhaps the only way to truly communicate, express, and connect is without any words at all.

A love album at its core, La Roux draws on the sincerest emotions one could earnestly muster as progeny of an electronic world, the dauntless apparent naiveté of our digital natives. What makes this album feel so beautiful, so true, and so genuine is its verite vantage of our virtual reality. As Elly serenades in synth through “Colourless Colour,” a track as indicative of star-crossed lovers as it is a cultural portraiture, the listener immerses in our narrator’s headspace amidst its atmosphere of arcade sonicscape …

we wanted to play but we had nothing left to play for… colourless colour, once in fashion soon to be scene.

Culture is a la mode, culture is of the fashion: and love is the new denim – rock and republic rhythmically reunited.

La Roux is a masterpiece of vortex pop music. The album dwells in the artistry of juxtaposition. Even with the synthesizers on overhaul, there is no overbearing barrage of artificiality distorting the listening experience. The vocals, though airy and elevated at times, exude a sense of passionate apathy, so indicative of any given millennial. La Roux eases the listener in with familiar eighties and early nineties club beats, but never loses focus on their place as artists to create something authentic and uniquely theirs.

Merged dichotomies find themselves nestled in prose as much as the production, the surface style is balanced by substance in social perception. “I’m walking on a broken roof, while I’m looking at the sky,” reads as justified juxtaposition of a culture caught between an ingrained sense of perpetual progress, and lack of concern or comprehension of the past. While those who forget history are doomed to forget it, we’re the new-new with Kevlar — this time we’ll be bulletproof,

Burning bridges shore to shore, I’ll break away from something more; I’m not to not to love until it’s cheap.

Generational amnesiatic attention spans only go so far – a spin cycle or so, roundabout – and our past has been marred by eight years of wizards behind curtains we never knew existed. Our culture is doused in uncertainty and skepticism – towards and from “the past.” So, we burn bridges to said past, we look ahead and focus on the only thing we know to be true – or so we’re told: love. Capitalism is the greatest love story, and as such love is the new currency – true love is loving until it’s cheap.

At the end of the day, great pop captures, encapsulates, and articulates contemporaneous culture as it is, at its core; it provides the most authentic reflection of wherever it resides. In a modern world of technocratic reproduction, La Roux grants human depth to a most markedly vapid of cultural eras:

My reflections are protection, they will keep me from destruction; my directions are distractions, when you’re ready, come into the light.

Music is a drug, it is something used to alter a current state of being; just because the world is burning around us, doesn’t mean we have to be cynical. In a society that equates sanity with sterility, it is a diamond in the rough that manages to capture the style and substance beneath the sound mind: enter La Roux – unforgettable.

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Unforgettable, Vol. 18: La Roux – La Roux