by Chris Hatch

Taken from the upcoming album, Amour Colere, Nicolas Michaux has this week released his eminently danceable new single, Parrot.

While this year’s previous singles, Harvesters and Nos retrouvailes have found the Belgian-born artist explore a slow, dreamy, wistfulness, his latest release finds him in a much more forthright mood. Parrot takes 4/4 pop and strips it right back to its elements. With just a taut, dry drum track, and a bass line that snakes its way through your ears, down your spine, and right to the tips of your toes, Michaux has managed to conjure up the kind of achingly cool pop that mid-era Phoenix so wonderfully mastered, while hinting at the no-frills, spartan funk that LCD Soundsystem dabble in from time to time.

With such stripped back instrumentation, it gives Michaux’s vocals a chance to pull through, as his lyrics wrestle with the ideas of autonomy, and herd-mentality in an attempt to pull himself free from social and political apathy. But it’s in the second half of the track that Michaux really starts to rouse himself, when his heady backing vocals and jittery guitars start to bleed through at the edges, before a final splash of colour is thrown across the canvas in the shape of an icily cool guitar line. It’s an expertly woven together mix of funk, pop, and new wave, that will have you reaching for the repeat button within seconds of the fade out.

Nicolas Michaux’s album Amour Colère which is out September 25 via Capitane Records.

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