Moss Side Sauna Club: MY WEIRD APPETITE
(Steam Room)
DL/Streaming
Manchester newcomers Moss Side Sauna Club release the vibrant new single MY WEIRD APPETITE. A vivid synth led track, carried forward by a palpable indie energy, the track is an inventive, buoyant effort which captures commercial appeal and experimental undercurrent within the band’s sound.
Bringing together elements of hyperpop and indietronica with a well placed alternative undercurrent, the track is as comparable to POLIÇA as it is to the likes of School Of Seven Bells. Opening with a striking fuzzy synth bass, the track soon introduces its driving live drums and gently processed lead vocals to create a pulsing, striking soundscape. Progressing to the chorus, the track opens out with a spacious reverb which floats around the vocal.
As MY WEIRD APPETITE progresses, as does the glitchy nature of the production, as if it’s gradually becoming more unhinged and unravelling, mirroring the playful nature of the lyricism. Bringing in an elegantly worked guitar line at the mid point, vocal cuts dance around the soundscape and the tracks creativity flourishes, allowing well placed samples to embellish the creative sonic ideas, and ultimately hammering home that this is not “pop” but something far more nuanced.
Made up of Will Brooks, Maddy Storm and Sam Craighan, Moss Side Sauna Club themselves describe MSSC as “a three-piece band and we’ve known each other for years. We came together to make an album during the worst times of our lives instead of going to therapy. The project came as a heat stroke induced fever dream as Sam desperately tried to feel good again in his local leisure centre. It’s been downhill ever since.” That quote might sound bleak, but the band finds humour in the hell of it all, turning despair into disarmingly catchy alternative-pop.
The track itself was written, recorded and produced by MSSC at Steam Room Studios in Salford, mixed by Maddy Storm and mastered by Pete Maher (Lana Del Rey, The 1975, Pixies). With a debut album on the way, the trio are already making noise on the live circuit, from their sold-out headline show at Manchester’s The Rat and Pigeon to a buzzy showcase for Find Joy at The Old Blue Last in London.
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All words by Simon Lucas-Hughes. More writing by Simon Lucas-Hughes can be found at his author’s archive.
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