by Devin Birse (@devvvvi.b)
Decisive Pink’s debut bubbles, its synths and drum machines seeping together to create the sound of a lost space-age waiting room, the dual vocals of Kate NV and Angel Deradoorian combining into an interstellar siren song that coaxes out a potent brew of retro futurist beauty. While art-pop legends in their own rights, the two have come together to create an astounding piece of sonic beauty, a gorgeous album of loops and electronic tingles that coaxes out of its eclectic array of electronics a gorgeous piece of hypnagogic bliss.
Playful is an overused descriptor yet it feels like the ideal one to describe this project's debut. It's an intensely collaborative piece of two masters of their respective crafts coming together to create a plastic age fairytale. NV and Deradoorian are no strangers to eclecticism, whether that be in their solo work or their previous bands of Glintshake and The Dirty Projectors respectively. The pair's shared interest in exploring the more expansive elements of pop makes their pairing as Decisive Pink, a shimmering new synthy pop duo, seem like a match destined for solid success, but even with those backgrounds, Ticket To Fame remains a far more sublime piece than expected.
Drawing upon some of the smoothest slices of electronic krautrock and experimental eighties synthpop, Decisive Pink feels intensely retrofuturist in its design, rocking back and forth across its eleven tracks between roving progressive-electronic experimentalism and rising hypnagogic pop. The duo’s combined skills on both synths and vocals create a cascading vision of a plastic age now past, but Ticket to Fame is not an album of mere replication, despite its reliance on the sounds of decades past, there’s raw experimentation and creative joy that lurks underneath the hood. The album sounds less like a tired attempt at remaking some lost past off synthesisers and electronic motorik beats but rather two of the best avant-pop auteurs treasuring in the new sounds they can find hidden underneath the airwaves of the old.
Across its tracks, there's a comedy applied to human life. Opener “Haffmilch Holiday” combines low synths and a tight beat into a pedestal from which NV and Deradoorian sing a series of relaxed protests against modern life, their subject matter alternating between the small irritants of insurance rates on the radio to harsher topics like pills and controlling partners. The major and minor problems of modern life united together as equal inconveniences to the singers' creative visions. This comic streak is maintained on late album highlight “Dopamine” with its blunt refrain of ‘I’m buying stuff I don’t need now’ ricocheting off its dancy new wave bass. Elsewhere on “Potato Tomato” the endless repetition of the title between NV and Deradoorian is interrupted by a sudden “what?” and the occasional laugh at the song's absurdity.
Beyond the comedy, there's a sense of joy in Ticket to Fame. On “Ode to Boy” an aching synth transforms a subtle love song into a swaying electronic lullaby. Whilst on the glorious “Cosmic Dancer” a slow build-up quietly bursts into expansive interstellar balladry. These tracks cast a sense of wonderment and exploration across the album like charting now known territory for the first time. On instrumental “Rodeo” the whirring of electronics is ever more complex as the drumbeat lays down an orbital groove that only makes everything else a little bit more transcendent.
This raw joy permeates every whirl and beep of Ticket to Fame from the pop glory of “Ode to Boy,” to the hypnotic mockery of “Dopamine,” there’s a sense of glee across the album but one that never dulls the sharpness or precision of the arrangements. This raw creativity and expressiveness bleed into every second of every song, creating an irresistible call backward and forward between the discotheques of the past and the dance floors of the future. At moments it has the satirical shimmer of Ann Steel, or the new wave grooves of Talking Heads, the drums are as precise as Cluster, and the vocals enchanting like Kate Bush, but Ticket to Fame is an album that could only come from a duo as sublimely matched as Decisive Pink.