Gangnam style…
[Video][Website]
[6.00]
Iain Mew: I immediately guessed correctly that Tom is from London. I used to live north of the river, and now I live south of the river. The divide is exaggerated, but I still smiled at a song starting “I want to stay south of the river,” a directional reversal of stereotyped reluctance. I smiled more at “watching the sunshine blaze the gray,” thinking of my own morning view across to the reflecting skyscrapers of Canary Wharf, and yet more still at the finality in the detail of the last bus pulling away. The light Todd Terje-ish groove is very much more charming to me for its sense of laidback satisfaction being tied to a sense of identity based on living somewhere that’s supposedly a pain to get anywhere else from.
[7]
Claire Biddles: “South of the River” is corny and sort of old-fashioned, but wears it well. Misch’s vocals are charmingly low-key, and it’s cute that each instrument gets its own ear-wormy hook.
[6]
Alfred Soto: I can’t argue with a violin hook this insidious, nor with the juxtaposition of said instrument and funk guitar and electric piano in a terrific extended coda. The Quaker Oats softness of the vocalist, as usual, leads to arguments.
[6]
Tim de Reuse: The production is so focused on clarity that it comes off empty and artificial, and the closing guitar solo is straight from the weather channel; good enough for a little head-nodding, I guess, but too antiseptic to leave an impression.
[5]
Ryo Miyauchi: Tom Misch’s twee disco-pop is at best the warm-up for the more sweaty records in the queue. Alone, it soundtracks a rather too polite party where the dancers move modestly and consciously to not bump into each other. So it’s a delight when the violin gets clumsy and swings out a note too hard, making an accidental earworm for the track.
[5]
Hannah Jocelyn: When I saw Dunkirk, the sound in the theater so loud that I instinctively ducked whenever a bomb dropped or an explosion otherwise occurred. For whatever reason, the violin hit kept giving me the same reaction, to the point where I dreaded its reappearance every time I listened to the song. There are a lot of things I like about this song — the smooth vocals, the complicated bass line — but it’s undone by the violin and that neverending solo. The minute-long fade-out is nearly as nerve racking as Christopher Nolan’s film, as the guitar keeps noodling and I anticipate the screech… yet it never comes.
[4]
Brad Shoup: I do love a song with its own cooldown section; in the last minute, a Kool & the Gang-style funk vamp becomes… well, a Kool & the Gang-style fusion reverie. I do enjoy Misch’s minimal affect, but it turns out I have even fewer complaints when he leaves the mic.
[6]
Nortey Dowuona: Sweet, gurgling bass carries Tom’s soft, transparent voice through the slicing, tight violin; sweeping, bubbly synths; and glittering, glancing guitar; with little bumps of drums.
[7]
Ian Mathers: At first I just loved that kicky little violin riff and the walking bass that takes over for it; then I started finding Misch’s oughta-be-milquetoast voice stuck in my head; and now I even love how “South of the River” fades out in a vaguely jazzy haze at the end. It’s a charmingly low-key as the video, featuring a bunch of people splitting the difference between miming the song and just goofing off (special credit for the guy who gets really into the keyboard playing near the end). Whether or not I can really call it my song of the year it’s definitely my earworm of the year, and thankfully I can say that with praise instead of resentment.
[8]