★★★☆
Five years on from his salient debut,Ex Tropical, Lost Animal continues to make outsider pop, fusing electronica with elements of popular music from the ’60s through the ’80s.
For his new album You Yang, Jarrod Quarrell has invited multi-instrumentalist Shags Chamberlain to the table, broadening the palette of sound.
‘Do The Jerk’ beats with an R&B heart over cold electronic beats, but the face of this track is a bitter, beaten-down rocker with a curled lip peddling his experimental sleaze-soul. ‘Prisoners Island’ is driven by melancholy keys with Quarrell’s vocals pushed to the fore; we witness a fragility within the despondency that characterises most of You Yang.
In other album highlights, ‘Too Late To Die Young’ might infer that Quarrell has resigned himself to the inevitable demise into old age, but the apathy is cheekily offset by calypso rhythms, while the collection closes with ‘New Year’s Day’, delicate but dissonant in its washed-out aesthetic.
You Yang strikes the balance between detached cool and steadfast sincerity, filtering it all through Lost Animal’s dirty lens of sleaze, sex and sadness.
Lost Animal’sYou Yangis available now through Dot Dash/Remote Control.
