Reality In Motion (Interscope Records, 2015) – TAME IMPALA
Where Lonerism was a masterpiece about the journey can go through when heading home after a party, the topic being brought into question by the Prince of Perth is the party itself. After a break-up, working with Mark Ronson and taking mushrooms whilst driving through LA listening to The Bee Gees, Kevin Parker has been pretty open about what his aim was with third LP Currents. “I just realised that I’d never heard Tame Impala played somewhere with a dancefloor or where people were dancing”, Parker told NME when asked about, what he calls, TI’s “dorky white disco-funk”.
These days Kevin is considered somewhat a connoisseur of the synthesiser, and the opening synth sequence on this track is what I imagine would be blasted out at an NBA game if the speakers were stoned. Failing to make the cut as a single, the lyrics sing of someone getting nervous about talking to a potential love/lust interest, and it goes without saying that Kevin’s take on the matter is quite different to, say, Drake’s or Biggie’s. Light poppy vocals sing anxiously about ‘shivers all over/it’s way too real/I’m way too sober’ in a way that wouldn’t be too out of place coming out of Daft Punk’s robotronic pipes.
With the whirling vocals and rolling drum pattern, we hear touches of ‘Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control’. Partnered with an infectious hook on the chorus, the pre-choruses (clearly influenced by a desire to make us dance) drop beautifully and, despite not being played on their current tour, would go down a treat live. In places the drums on this album are delicate, working around clicks and snaps, but Reality In Motion is a piece built around the wonderfully heavy groove of a man trying to get over a heavy heart.