Good pop tunes needn’t always don the same mask in their execution, with laptops and premeditated sampling and all that jazz. Mezzanine Swimmers, the solo project from Mike Green (Video Daughters), exhibits an innovative, improvisational approach to danceable rhythms. Pulling from previous lives playing every instrument at one point or another in bands, Green lands on a unique understanding of shapeable song structures and on-the-fly compositions. His forthcoming album, Black Cat In Heat, out February 2 (January 19 for digital) on Fire Talk and Already Dead Tapes, incorporates elements of noise and synthesizers and distorted vocals atop catchy beat cycles that make for unconventional, yet wholly inviting tracks.
His single, “Louis Warship,” is a perfect introduction, with its curious foundation of ascending and descending percussive drive, almost like a marimba, accompanied by a heavy, static-infused synths like a deep-tissue massage for your last nerve. It’s simultaneously anxious and soothing; anxious if you focus on one particular component or another, soothing if you let yourself fall into the mesmerizing loops. Indiscernible, indistinguishable samples and airy noises come and go like drones flying overhead, and the vocals become increasingly chaotic, but your foot is still tapping the ground by the song’s abrupt end. It’s a dance you didn’t know you had in you.
