The ten-minute collection is irresistibly fun and inspiringly open to all manner of influences.
Words: Lloyd Bolton
From the first note of 'dream phone' by dream phone there recurs one insistent thought: "Yes, yes, yes." After a robotic count-in, 'Strut' locks into a gliding groove, growing into a sparkly homemade party starter. Though humble about their process, dream phone have created a complete package, a world to get lost in. Their soundscapes are epic, undercut by knowingly silly autotuned vocals and often even sillier lyrics.
Musically, the EP is joyously overstimulating, the electronically encrusted vocals playing against inherently exciting synth flares and bouncing bass arpeggios. The style is rooted in a hyperpop-inspired DIY sound the band describe as 'glitch pop', but encompasses a huge range of musical touchstones. The euphoric 'one, two, three' of the chorus of 'bad girls' is pure Le Tigre. 'hell' swirls around like an air dancer before zeroing in on a chorus that feels like a choked version of a mid-2000s pop song. There is also something of The Cramps in dream phone's adoring mutilation of popular forms stretching back a couple of decades before their time. These are modern pop songs at heart, undercut with ironic lyrics, a charmingly obnoxious mangled vocal sound, and elemental synth sounds. The collection is just under ten minutes long and, appropriately, leaves no room for anything but the most essential, instantly gratifying moments.
dream phone is an affirmation of the joy of life, with a contemporary sense of the blurred distinctions between bingeing Buffy and living a popstar fantasy. Their EP welcomes us into an exciting new world, unapologetically immediate and strangely familiar, composed as it is of a collage of pop references, chewed up and spat out in the wrong order. Irrepressibly energetic and inspiringly open to all manner of influences, it is an outsanding debut.
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