It's hardly the best-kept of secrets, but objectivity's a myth that persists in this game: intriguing as it might be to imagine what a god's-eye-view of contemporary indie music might look like, listening without prejudice is more fallacy than the chalky fellow sat proudly atop a hill in Cerne Abbas.
So you’ll excuse the slight shudder of trepidation when electronica prodigy Nathan Fake's new single 'You Are Here' surfaced among the clutter on the DiS office’s desks, amid a wealth of fawning reviews from assembled broadsheets and Mixmag, evoking as it did memories of ill-suited dalliances with Roni Size in the late-nineties.
The coffee-table fears prove sadly founded: 'You Are Here' is one of those tracks it's too easy to like non-commitally enough – creeping in on its tip-toes with a tepid electronic beat, like blinking blearily into the bright light of a mid-winter morn, it meanders pleasantly but ineffectually for two-and-three-quarter minutes, before going supernova in time-honoured post-rock style for the finale.
Its soporific textures are appealing enough, but really, to lavish too much praise on this kind of thing is to affirm nothing. Dreamlike, but sometimes dreams are a bit dull.
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6Alex Denney's Score