Today in mysteries: Jem Cooke’s bio says she’s worked with Cher, but either it’s a different Cher, it’s some sample weirdness, or it’s completely avoided the Internet…
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Scott Mildenhall: After the great pains exerted to prevent people from knowing that one of CamelPhat is the voice of “Pretty Green Eyes” — one of the greatest singles of the 21st century — it’s somewhat amusing that the apparently more “credible” successors to Ultrabeat are releasing music that is almost of a piece with it, save for a few cosmetic changes. In 2019, do the supposed sonic politics of cool, and the presumed damage of damnable discographies, still demand such subterfuge? Quite probably millions of people love “Pretty Green Eyes,” however much faith is put into a nebulous classism that deems an ethereal female vocal more worthy than a big Scouse bloke shouting “NEVER HAVE TO BE ALONE.” How many would care, listening to this, if they discovered that they were driving a Mini Metro?
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Alfred Soto: Now this hits the spot: echo-draped vocal reminiscent of Róisín Murphy over the kind of house sequencer about which I can wax nostalgic but is faster and softer than its predecessors.
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Joshua Minsoo Kim: Jem Cooke has a good voice, but it doesn’t really mean anything when it’s made to sound like every other house vocal. It’s also surrounded by the cheapest of progressive house tricks, all of which are handled with little grace.
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Iris Xie: Am I back in 1999, pre-Y2K? The soft, rounded ebbing pulse of the synth sounds nostalgic, the vocal style is something heard everywhere before. “Breathe” is the equivalent to meshing together all popular “electronic dance” songs, whatever that means, and getting the uniform average.
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Thomas Inskeep: Floor-filling peak-hour house tightened into pop single form? Fuck yes — CamelPhat has clearly been paying attention to the likes of MK. Additionally, Jem Cooke needs to be made a star right now.
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Katherine St Asaph: Another fine entry into the mini-canon of songs that sound like Sarah McLachlan dance remixes, even thought I’d rather get pulped by a sledgehammer than have to tell someone “oh, it’s by this group CamelPhat.”
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Iain Mew: This is one of the better uses of a particular recently popular frozen synth sound, and it’s about building something around it, giving it some tension to play against. The effect is like Jem Cooke is out on the tundra and the ground beneath her is starting to glow and throb. If it gets a little overdramatic in the end, at least it’s earned it.
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