Kevin Bronson on September 8th, 2020

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The highly improbable story of Cobra Man began when Andy Harry (né Andrew Harris) asked his friend Sarah Rayne to help score a film for the Worble skater crew back in 2017. They came up with a left-field disco soundtrack, and a band was born. Their sound, which they call “Los Angeles power disco,” caught on, and owing to the fact their live shows are spectacles, the duo have become the Captain and Tennille of the underground.

The stars (and the high pressure system that is roasting California) have aligned for this week’s release of their new single “Heatwave.” It could not be more perfect for the weekend that L.A. just sweated through. “‘Heatwave’ is about cabin fever and summertime madness,” the duo says. “We wrote the song about a person trapped in their shitty apartment during a heatwave flipping through dating apps to find someone who has air conditioning. It’s about being desperate for comfort and safety enough to give yourself away for it.”

Feel the condensation dripping off the glistening disco ball? It’s a cool breeze from the ’70s, to be sure. Harry and Rayne actually wrote the song in the fall of 2019 with Isom Innis (Foster the People) and Bonnie McKee, with Harry and Innis producing and Lars Stalfors mixing.

The requisite guitar solo ushers in the final verse, which, if you were alone and without AC in recent days, you might have dreamt in heat-induced delirium: “Back in the swamp, it’s me and the dogs / Checking for calls, hoping that you hit me up / I want the ice age in your apartment / Welcome me in, cause hell is getting hot again / In your arms until it’s over, we’ll have a cold one / Party til the winter comes / We’ll fuck it up for the heatwave, grind it out for the heatwave.”

It’s chiq and cheeky at the same time — the kind of song that’ll make your summer playlist a little cooler.

||| Stream: “Heatwave”

||| Also: Stream “Light Me Up”

||| Previously: “New Driveway Soundtrack”