This is not quite what we were expecting. ‘Bunch of loopers!’ exclaims a vocodery voice that might belong to a more cheerful cyber-child of Radiohead’s ‘Fitter, Happier’ droid. And before we know what’s hit us, some dippy samples and breakneck rhythms skitter off in the direction of Bentley Rhythm Ace, and dance upon the ruins of your preconceptions.
For Looper are Stuart David of Belle & Sebastian infamy, plus his lovely assistants Karn (Mrs David) and Ronnie Black (brother of David), and their second single sounds nothing like the fey folk pop of Stuart’s day job. Neither, it must be said, does this sound like ‘A Spaceboy Dream’, the Stu D track on the last Belle & Seb LP that sees him coming over all Arab Strap. Or, for that matter, the scratchy, lo-fi seven-inch effort that Looper put out on Sub Pop last summer. There’s plenty of all that to come on the album. For now, though, Looper are happy to mess with your head, thumb their noses at what’s expected of the, and quite possibly make you shimmy.
