Accessible, yet just as thought-provoking as ever. Otherish disguise their philosophical questioning in powdery pop on their new single.
Release Date: 12th July 2024
Label: Self Release
Formats: Digital
Otherish are old friends of ours. We loved their 2023 albums, Gone Wrong Rainbow Blues and How Lucky We Are Being Us and Each Other and, just last month, we had the chance to savour their single, Summer in Belfast, 2098 – a dystopian vista of the band’s home city in the not-too-distant future.
This time around, brothers Mark and Paul Bradley, along with mates Francis Kane and George Claridge turn their attention to questions that grown-up humans might ask themselves, before seeking childlike single-word answers to those questions. And, this time, they’ve dressed their philosophical ruminations in a particularly upbeat disguise of sweet, powdery, electronic optimism.
Without Each Other’s Otherness, Would Any One Of Us Exist? Asks a series of fundamental questions: “If not for you, would there be me?” “If not for me, would there be you?” “If not for light, would there be dark?” – I guess that you’ve got the gist of it – all designed to conclude that it’s our very oppositeness that glues us together as a species – light/dark, yin/yang, win/lose, inside/outside.
A pulsing rhythm provides the foundation for bursts of sweet electronica, awash with blaring horn sounds; it’s smoother than smooth and, on the surface at least, it a slice of electronic pop that would fit into the most unassuming of environments. But, this is Otherish that we’re talking about, and the messages that their sending NEVER sit on the surface – to appreciate their intentions, you need to get right inside – and that’s where you’ll find the conclusion to Without Each Other’s Otherness… – “It isn’t you who’s insane, it’s the world.”
Two singles within a month is a good sign, as far as a band like Otherish is concerned. They tend to work in spurts. A fourth album from this most singular of bands is whispered to be in the pipeline and it’s possible – but by no means guaranteed – that Summer In Belfast, 2098 and Without Each Other’s Otherness, Would Any One of Us Exist? are an early foretaste of that rumoured product. Watch this space – Otherish move in mysterious ways…
Listen to Summer I n Belfast, 2098, the June 2024 single from Otherish, here:
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