Stream: Ablebody, ‘Backseat Heart’

Kevin Bronson on July 27th, 2016

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In introducing their new single “Backseat Heart,” L.A. duo Ablebody point out that they are “students of the past but far from retro fetishists.” That quite possibly makes them an anomaly on Lolipop Records, which will release their full-length “Adult Contemporaries” on Oct. 14. But the duo — twins Christoph and Anton Hochheim (The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart/Depreciation Guild), augmented by Daniel Rosenbaum and and Jordan Sabolick live — back their claim over 11 tracks that draw from the psychedelic ’60s, the easy-on-the-ears ’70s, the New Romanticism of ’80s and the British twee-pop that followed. All of which makes it easy to fall for the ticklish “Backseat Heart,” which couches its broken-heartedness washes of synth and a weeping guitar solo. Helping put the Hochheims in the driver’s seat in the studio were Cole M. Grief-Neill (Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Nite Jewel, Julia Holter) and producer Kenny Gilmore (Ariel Pink’s keyboardist). We’ll leave it to you to interpret director Megan Cullen’s video for the song, which finds the twins looking dapper but sulky in both the desert and the urban jungle before they run across some “plant people.”

||| Stream: “Backseat Heart”