aka “We Disagree”
[Video]
[6.50]
Patrick St. Michel: Consider this the inverse of dance producers yanking vocals out of pop/R&B songs and re-appropriating them without much thought for the original. Jon Hopkins’ album version of “We Disappear” is a lovely intro to last year’s absorbing Immunity, a shuffler that sounds like it was built out of the sounds found in a surgery room. This stab at wider popularity, though, simply drapes some vocals courtesy of Lulu James over the glitchy original and it just sounds…alright? But also pretty unnecessary, especially since the original is stellar all its own.
[5]
Will Adams: The gorgeous glitches of the instrumental original are toned down to make way for James, but it still spotlights Hopkins’ skill for creating intense, dark tech house. The vocal line swoops and gets tossed into tunneled reverb, while the bass throbs in minor progressions. “We Disappear” is just as well suited for spacing out in a lounge as it is for a smart dancefloor.
[8]
Alfred Soto: The squelchy Burial-influenced laptop beats and rumbling bass think it’s 2005 and they’re still fresh, but the star is Lulu James, and it’s a star performance, alright: call it torch house, midnight blue in color and mood, self-involved.
[5]
Brad Shoup: I dunno if this is even pretty. It’s more light than anything else, like a glitchy Julee Cruise track. Hopkins produces marvelously, grinding the bassline down and asserting the skips, while keeping James’ voice pristine.
[8]
Scott Mildenhall: Lulu James can haunt an empty room — figuratively as much as literally, as she does singing this a capella — so she doesn’t really even need Jon Hopkins’ exactingly considered burbling. She’s happily provided as much atmosphere on her own singles, and they have actual words and verses and choruses and stuff, ones they’ve been all the better for. “We Disappear” offers no reason not to have both.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: It’s like an Emily Bezar song ground out on a typewriter — fascinatingly pretty, prettily fascinating. I’m imagining it in concert: solo soprano accompanied by printing factory.
[7]
Thomas Inskeep: It’s kinda ear-catching but also kinda annoying. No one needs a return to broken beat R&B (the sonics on this are very 10 years ago).
[4]
Rebecca A. Gowns: Heard back-to-back with Jessie J & Friends’ “Bang Bang,” it provides a counterpoint: electronic blips and boops expand, seeming to fill a cathedral. Lulu James promises that we will disappear, but for the moment, all is present — and not just existing — all bodies and forms vibrate with presence as her voice moves past them. The sound has become tactile. Everything breathes.
[9]