Tags: Dan Black
Everything you need to know about Dan Black is epitomized by his latest single ‘Alone’. Beginning with a bassline of impeccable cool it exemplifies a healthy infatuation with über-producers The Neptunes and (of course) Timbaland, with a positive, profoundly pop perspective.
Before this pop turnaround Black was very much a part of the indie scene. As one quarter of the group The Servant (don’t worry, me neither) he released a couple of full length albums and E.P‘s but never really settled comfortably into chart success. Although they did find a modest audience at home and a greater listenership abroad in France and Italy.
The Servant released a single from their final album in 2006 called ‘Hey Lou Reed’ which, despite its horrible, attention-seeking appellation, is actually a very fine song. It falls somewhere between open hearted plea and hipster/huckster parody and assures the listener of it’s composers skills.
Negating the eloquence he has evinced in interviews, Black’s new songs are clothed in minimal lyrical sentiments; usually clipped phrases and short, abstruse statements such as ‘European/human being’ and “Flesh nipping/blood sipping” both of which are from the dapper ‘I Love Life’.
Black is also an artist with an ear for catchy pop funk, borrowing a little from contemporary R’n’B as well as a little from, that genre unto himself, Prince. ‘Yours’ is a riff driven affair with a nimble drop-D guitar lick assailed by an enormous, rudely interruptive kit. Black cuts across this offhand pairing with short and sharp melodies which do as much to the rhythm as the harmony of the track.
It’s the kind of archetypal pop-fun formula that, if assembled correctly, never gets old. In Dan Black we have an expert exponent of this sound, rapidly proving himself as a dexterous singles artist one hopes that he can sustain his Midas touch over the course of his album which will surely follow later in the year.
It’s not quite been the same without Eddie Argos & co. My first ever memories of this incongruous bunch was in my stifled student union, when they had just released their first album ‘Bang Bang Rock & Roll’. The shoddy venue could hold no more than a clutch of 100 people in its sweaty palm, but watching their ramshackled performance was a devout lesson in Argos’ much practiced irony-drenched showmanship. Since then they have spent the last few years in Germany, reaching God-like status with their indie folk, in the same way as the Hoff is heralded- well not quite that famous, nor has Argos ever had the Adonis figure that the Hoff once had. However, they’re back now, with this, their third studio album ‘Art Brut Vs. Satan’.
