The artwork of DROLOE’s “Shibuya” evokes rather specific mental imagery when I spin the track, its red neon lights exuding the tensions of nightlife that are echoed within the music itself. Beginning with an airy lead-synth that quickly becomes distorted into a rough translation of its former being, the percussion kicks off to light-speed. Its resulting drop provides a tough, thunderous low-end with a carousel of hi-hats surrounding its now-warped synth, one that seamlessly transitions into a much more positive affair as the song reaches its elated peak in its second half.
The give-and-take relationship of nightlife’s surface and its complimentary underbelly materializes with the audible work now fleshed out to compliment its visual representation, a place where the backroom-dealings that prop up the party threaten to flow over into the dreamworld above, a safe-haven where emotional connections of love and lust are made amidst flashing lights. All the pieces are in place for a surrealist nightmare to break loose, yet just as quickly as the possibility emerges, it subsides.The opposing forces bend but never break, allowing the dream to live on, the red neon lights flickering onward.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/281516834″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]