- Close is as sunshiny a release as this summer has seen, but it's also cannily predicated: expansive and appealing in ways that don't seem pandering. The title track is lovers' dubstep, straight up, with a smeared, lovelorn soul shout, its faded patina giving the whole thing a memorial feeling. It's remarkably chaste, too, despite Hackman having originally posted it on SoundCloud as "I Just Want Your Clothes." Alicia Keys' refrain of "I just want you close / Then you could stay forever" echoes early-'60s Brill Building pop like "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," and even surrounded by all those right-now bells and whistles it seems timeless.
"Satisfy" goes for another, more deliberate R&B allusion, grabbing what it needs from Thelma Houston's "Don't Leave Me This Way" a cappella and fitting it to a synthed-up mid-tempo nu-disco thump that gains force as it goes, thanks to the way those synths get soundtrack-like without cheese. It's vampy enough to fit on the next Thievery Corporation mix CD, but the production's dryness, and its deliberate pace, make the track not seem merely gimmicky.
The only gimmick on "Your Face Pulling My Hair" is the title. Smartly, Hackman lets the last track, rather than the lead one, get the joke name—the phrase comes from vocals taken off Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," and that phrase drifts from left speaker to right over a bustling house four, a fizzy synth line and very assured subs. There's nothing new about this approach except the energy and freshness Hackman approaches it with. That's plenty.
トラックリスト A1 Close
A2 Satisfy
B Your Face Pulling My Hair