BENEE – Lychee: 13th Floor EP Review
BENEE the Pop Wonderkid from Auckland New Zealand takes flight on EP Lychee, combining contemporary Dance Pop ambience with some of the bright sunshine of the Sixties Moment.
Opening track Beach Boy sets the tone. The warmth of the sun and the call to drive me crazy on the freeway sets the scene in Los Angeles. Stella Bennett’s singing is light, airy and swings easily. Little Pop hooks are used sparingly, cribbed from classic Bacharach and David tunes as interpreted by Dionne Warwick.
There is an undertone of darker themes and moral ambiguity echoing Bret Easton Ellis from first novel Less Than Zero. Which begins with People are afraid to merge. On the freeway. He took that title from an Elvis Costello single, who fashioned Power Pop out of his generation’s Punk nihilism.
Sometimes I wanna feel nothin’/ Be my beach boy/ if it’s only for a day.
Hurt You,Gus. Co-written and produced by long term musical mentor Josh Fountain. Vocally she floats down like a summer shower to inhabit the song. A simple bass rhythm leads.
Similar metronomic Dance Pop beats on Soft Side. Minimal instruments have propulsion, along with the soft-toned Rap of the singer.
The music has an emphasis on texture and ambience rather than pushing up into high dramatic peaks.
Marry Myself and we find her back in the City of Angels. We’ve been out all night in your fast car/ A coyote staring at me. That fixes the temporal space it occupies. An acoustic guitar leads the song out. Very louche and languid as the busy beats kick it along with some atonal rap vocals. Dry wit as the refrain I wanna marry myself carries the song out. Narcissistic and don’t expect her to care that much for you. It is a scene from a movie as she teases the object of her scorn.
Doesn’t Matter is her best vocal performance on this mini-album. There is a shaky vulnerability in her phrasing. She tends to caress the lyrics rather than hitting high peaks. Those Bacharach styled melodic hooks are there again. It works like a little magic charm on the refrain, maybe I’m consumed by my mental. This time sweet and fragile. If I medicate, would it hurt me? / ‘Cause I’m hurting, I feel unwell.
Make You Sick takes all that back and closes the show with some fast and nasty. Gothic echoing tones open the song. Techno beats and Hip-Tastic effects swirl and surround a nice little gumbo of flashy Dance Pop. Fountain co-writing and producing again.
I’m a bad bitch/ No, you can’t have this. Margot Robbie in Wolf of Wall Street turning the tables on DiCaprio and shaking that moneymaker.
BENEE and Lychee. Sophisticated contemporary Dance Pop with a powerful undertow of unsettling emotions once you are seduced into this particular dream world.
Rev Orange Peel
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