Album Review

MidiMidis – The Despondent / It’s Difficult

• 4th May 2011

Alas Mr Fogg, we meet again.

My last experience of Mr Fogg was also through Glasswerk, having issues with the guestlist after getting my name down to review a gig, but eventually enjoying a wonderful blissed out, electronic live set full of heart.

This time he is on co-production duties alongside MidiMidis for their new double A-side single, The Despondent / It’s Difficult.

And it is the same type of heartfelt electro noodling that shines and shimmers through both tracks.

It still remains strange to really place the true intentions and influences of MidiMidis with these wares on display, the strongest of the two tracks is clearly the first, taking the vocals of what could be a forgotten indie also-ran from the late nineties/early noughties, harking back to the wasteland that lay post-brit-pop and pre-the new rise of indie, yet this slightly awkward vocal guilty pleasure is lilted by the fuzzy warmth of the 8-bit backing that underpins everything going on and elevates it to a status worthy of attention, even if it is earmarked as something of a curiosity.

Second track, “It’s Difficult”, may possibly refer to trying to review this release, with it’s varying styles all thrown into the mix, a more basic gameboy beat starts us off before being overlayed with something akin to a slightly shoe-gazy first verse, then buoying around with an almost Ian Dury delivery, before switching things up again with a yelping chorus, the track both intrigues and infuriates me, and doesn’t fill me with quite the same sense of wonderment as it’s predecessor.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of them, and it is possible the publicity machine is a little perplexed too, the press release is filled with fluff that pitches the band by suggesting you ‘imagine the Strokes in Tron, or a Speak and Spell with a broken heart’.  

My own contribution, MidiMidis are 2011’s The Wombats versus 1986’s Alex Kidd, perhaps?