Review: Cut Copy – Free Your Mind
posted in: Music News
The Melbourne, Australia-based synthpop outfit Cut Copy are no strangers to how the music industry works today: if you want people to pay attention to your new record, you’d better have a kickass marketing strategy in place. They certainly knew what they were doing as they geared up to release their most recent effort, Free Your Mind. First, they pressed the album’s lead single on 120 limited edition records that were only available at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival. Then, in a move designed to drum up the greatest amount of press coverage while making the song relatively impossible to actually hear, they made the record’s second single available only at six billboards located around the planet.
Of course, the danger with such carefully constructed publicity ploys is that “ after all the hype has been built up “ the record still has to be, you know, good. And with expectations already high following the breakaway success of 2011’s Zonoscope, these Australians had a lot to live up to. Luckily, while Free Your Mind may be something of a wild card, on the whole the album is as catchy, euphoric and danceable as anyone could have hoped for. It’s also the most retro record Cut Copy has released to date; while Zonoscope may have had its ’80s influences, the band’s latest release is indisputably and unabashedly steeped in all things ’80s, from the acid house moments on “Let Me Show You Love” to the trippy, psychedelic pop on “Walking In The Sky.”
Like the billboards that Cut Copy placed in random locations around the globe, these well-crafted tracks meander off in unexpected directions while somehow sounding extremely deliberate. The infectious “Take Me Higher,” builds slowly, layering sounds upon sounds while moving toward its eventual elaborate conclusion, while the spacey “Footsteps” climbs through numerous peaks and valleys. And although several songs approach the six-minute mark, they rarely seem overly-long or unnecessarily drawn out. Instead, it feels as though these songs have been given room to breathe, and they become a pulsating, almost living organism. This is especially true on “We Are Explorers,” which blends more traditional house-style pianos with flirty synth melodies that almost mimic birdcalls, as well as on the echoing, shadowy “Dark Corners and Mountaintops.”
Free Your Mind does falter from time to time, with songs that “ much like the album’s noisy artwork “ are all flair with little substance. The trio of spoken-word interludes spaced throughout the record “ “(into the desert),” “(above the city),” and “(the waves)” “ do flow nicely enough with the tracks that precede and follow them, but all three are a somewhat unnecessary addition. “Intro” doesn’t contain anything innovative enough to warrant its being separated from “Free Your Mind,” the first fully-realized song on the record. Given that there are 10 other infectious tracks for listeners to feast their ears on, these short snippets sound out of place and are likely destined to see a lot of action from the skip button.
Still, despite the occasional misstep, Cut Copy have created yet another album that manages to beautifully toe the line between, “Let’s dance!” and “Let’s do drugs and hang out.” Whether you choose to throw it on at your next rager or during an upcoming chill sesh, Free Your Mind will help improve the mood.
Follow Em @emcHAMMERRR
More like this: