by Chris Hatch
Our inaugural Single Of The Week is the blisteringly effervescent, Wheel, from Brooklyn-based songwriter, Katie Von Schleicher.
Venturing away from the slow-burning, openness of previous single Nowhere, Wheel is a dichotomous hit of energetic, self-confident pop, and brittle, uncertain lyrics. Propelled along by the kind of zesty guitar and boxy, uptempo drumming that lit up the careers of Courtney Barnett and adorned Anna Burch’s Quit The Curse, the immediate Wheel captures the attention with its bright, catchy sensibilities.
Repeated listens, however, do slowly reveal shades of darkness in Von Schleicher‘s lyrics, as she longs to be a ‘face in your crowd’ – a strange mix of isolation and infatuation lurking behind the song’s day-glo instrumentation. At two minutes long, Wheel is a rapid fire snapshot of Von Schleicher’s otherwise measured songwriting – with latest album, Consummation, imminent, our appetite is well and truly whet.
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