Review: City Lights by Woolfy

Have you seen that Ryan Gosling film, Drive?

Regardless, if Drive – a movie in which Gosling plays a monosyllabic, grumpy, ruthless, car-driving killer – needed a new soundtrack, this would be it.

City Lights is the fourth official release for LA producer Woolfy, aka Simon James, another lovechild of Australian record label Future Classic (the guys responsible for Flume, Jagwar Ma, Chet Faker, Classixx, et cetera).

Combining dreamy, smoky loops with heavy vocals, City Lights paints a hazy image of a drugged-up night spent floating through the neon signs of a blurry city.

And, just like these nights, it just goes on forever. Only four songs long but with a running time of almost half an hour, the collection really is enough to lull you into a daze. However, considering there are only two original tracks (the title track ‘17’ and two remixes of the latter), there really isn’t much to go on by ways of variation.

While ‘17’s lyrics are mostly concerned with a strange and unexplained obsession with “cigarettes and Ford Cortinas”, the standout track is undoubtedly ‘City Lights’. Watery reflections combine with curious guitar strums to infuse an electronic-folk twist to this laid-back singalong, evoking imagery of riding in a 70s Mustang in a leather jacket with a warm breeze in your face (Ryan Gosling, eat your heart out).

For all the variations and droning drum loops, City Lights has a certain aura of charm and comfort – somewhat alike to Drive. No matter how dirty and gory this world gets, there’s always a simple electronic beat for you to relax to and drive the night away.