386: What it Feels Like

Art Official Age (2014)
Putting aside the lyrics for a moment, this duet with Andy Allo perfectly embodies the nervous feeling of going back to somebody’s house for the first time while the game of seduction is playing out. The bassline chokes like a knotting in the throat and the staccato beat evokes the heightened self awareness that occurs as two tentative players swap loaded, strategic movements amid a white-out of adrenaline-pumped, screaming nuances. When you pay attention to the lyrics it’s clear that the song’s a long-distance conversation between the duettists, but when you would sell the moon to know exactly what’s going on in the other person’s head, it doesn’t matter if you’re in the same room or not – the chasmic, cosmic separation becomes wider than any time-zone divide. I could gush for days on the way this song makes me feel but I agree with the Russian writer Turgenev who once commented that there are feelings that can only be expressed via music, and What it Feels Like generates that churning mix of promise and anxiety better than any impoverished words could.