Day 106: Chromatics - Night Drive
I’ve got no patter today. Nothing interesting has happened, I’ve had no noteworthy thoughts. I’m toying with the idea of purchasing a pair of shorts, I received a nice email today – I’ve got nothing, so let’s just get right into it. Today’s record is Night Drive by Chromatics.
Album cover courtesy of Italians Do It Better
Chromatics were an electronic music band from Portland who started off as a noise-punk no-wave group but pivoted to electro pop and Italo disco, before announcing that they’re breaking up in 2021. They’re one of those bands who you might know even if you don’t think you know them, as many of their songs have appeared on TV and in films. They’re also the band you may have seen play at the Roadhouse in the second part of the premiere of the Twin Peaks revival from 2017, if you’re a person with good taste in television.
Night Drive is the band’s first proper foray into a more polished Italo disco sound, and it’s their first release under the label Italians Do It Better. The label was founded by Johnny Jewel, who was a member of Chromatics. He started the label to release the music that he made with the various groups he was in, as he wanted more autonomy and less involvement from corporate goons:
I didn't want someone telling me when a record was due, or when something needed to be written or recorded. Or when I needed to go on tour. I believe in doing things when it's ready.
The more I found out about Chromatics, the more excited I got: there are very few people in this world whose taste I trust more than that of the late, great David Lynch, and “post punk band that pivots to being an Italo disco revival thing” sounds like something that was cooked up in a lab to entice people like me. But I thought I got my hopes up a bit too much. That’s less to do with the actual music of the Chromatics and more to do with my own premature reaction to them.
Don’t get me wrong, Night Drive is a decent record from the start but I wasn’t immediately blown away. I started getting more convinced during “Killing Spree”, which is right up my street: an instrumental electronic tune with an organ that sounds like it’s lifted straight out of the soundtrack of an old horror film. After that, I feel like I got into it.
The record feels like it’s meant to be played in a place that’s dark and smoky and has a slight undercurrent of danger to it, but maybe more in a sexy way rather than actually being scary. It’s moody and very evocative, it’s easy to see why it’s used in films so much. The lyrics are mainly introspective and melancholic and singer Ruth Radelet’s voice is gorgeous, but my personal favourites on the album are the instrumentals. “Tick of the Clock” is one of my favourite things I’ve heard at least in the past week.
It's an 8.5/10, solid album once I got over whatever issue I had during the first few songs. I need to do a bit of a deep dive into the work of Johnny Jewel.