The clip may be an immaculately-produced throwback to the ’50s Grease era, but the latest track from Peachnoise, ‘Bubblegum Lover’, is a thoroughly modern slice of genre-bending pop.
Having worked with Kimbra, NZ-born producer Fagan Wilcox brings his experimental production chops to the fledgling Melbourne duo, with vocalist Gina Somfleth weaving an intricate vocal melody around a crisp beat that can shift from sparse to wonderfully layered, and back again, in an instant.
It’s the sort of sharp, ever-changing take on ‘pop’ that flies completely at odds with whatever expectations you may have of it based on its sickly sweet title, and it’s no surprise that Peachnoise have shared the stage with the similarly thought-provoking sounds of ‘sad pop’ champ Pikachunes or Hiatus Kaiyote’s Nai Palm.
The clip, meanwhile, set out to evoke Grease and its Pink Ladies/T-Birds crews, and damn did it deliver. One of the slickest productions we’ve seen from an act of this size, no detail has been missed, from the enormous Yank tank cars to the diner setting, and it’s a wonder the whole thing was shot in Melbourne.
With a string of seriously polished efforts so far, Peachnoise are looking the goods.
