5th on the Sound of 2012 list. Re-release time!
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[6.58]
Iain Mew: A fantastic balance of mystery and urgency, dragons and DJs. The verses with their menacing rumbling and Malin Dahlström’s wonderfully expressive vocals give the reasons to escape. Then the thumping drums of the chorus are that escape written large, an escape into the club, into dance, into something which will give you a chance not to think for a minute. They actually make it sound like something really worth escaping to, as well. Except that even in that moment, she is escaping through the very song which reminds her of what she’s running from from, or at least what that once was, an internal conflict which adds extra layers of intensity. The way that Malin’s voice stretches to a squeak on the first word of “and if I cry I’ll cover my ears” is quite something.
[9]
Brad Shoup: Rhythmic surges great and small are the draw here: toms, wooden raps, forceful respiration. Tension accretes with each refrain, during which the melody resolves then promptly comes undone. It’s a tension that overpowers the yo-DJ conceit, and even any conveyed sadness: the possibility of morning isn’t even broached.
[7]
Zach Lyon: I’m on the record as being a huge Niki stan, and I was entirely unsurprised that they made the Sound of 2012 (has more to do with timing than anything). This one, which has been around for a year or two and remains one of their most popular tracks, is as good a thesis statement as anything else they’ve released. Like last time we covered them, “DJ” isn’t one of my favorites, as it’s a bit too muddy and monochromatic and lacking in emotional depth compared to their others. It’s one of their rare songs where the track itself doesn’t play an active role in telling the song. But if you like it, I imagine you’ll like the rest of their spare catalog. Here’s hoping they don’t follow in the footsteps of my last Sound Of obsession and actually release an album sometime.
[7]
Edward Okulicz: This song sits at the intersection of what’s happening in pop-dance music worldwide, but also, conveniently, as a kind of midpoint between a whole slew of critically-appreciated female artists or female-fronted groups. But it’s not just base-covering; Niki & The Dove are excellent at conveying mood, and here show themselves to be surprisingly good at flitting from one to the other in the space of a song. “DJ, Ease My Mind” is nervous and tentative, replete with breathy noises and words barely making it outside the throat, and the chorus is as uplifting as it is unsettling.
[8]
John Seroff: The array of artistic references from the last Niki and The Dove review remain accurate (Ladytron, Missing Persons, Bat for Lashes, Zola Jesus, Kate Bush) but none quite so accurate and damning by comparison than the work of Olof and Karin Dreijer. Whatever small concessions Fever Ray took toward radio friendliness are far overshadowed by this halfheartedly mopey shotput in the direction of goth disco. The final product is badly flawed, not dark or weird enough to show a unique personality and too mannered and weepily self-absorbed to allow the DJ to Save Its Life Tonight. It’s a blunted, stunted thing of limited utility, a butter Knife.
[5]
Alfred Soto: Fever Ray fans will celebrate: here’s a hunk of gothic corn, complete with motionless stentorian/histrionic femme vocal. But they might plotz too: it’s got a beat.
[6]
Doug Robertson: Downbeat, but still full of, y’know, actual beat. Its anti-euphoric stance makes it seem all the more real, hinting of nights spent smoking outside the venue, with only a rough impression of what’s going on inside filtering through the walls and lurking in the subconscious. It lingers longer than the brief rush that’s easily found on the dancefloor, enticing you into a life being lived for more than just the moment.
[7]
Alex Ostroff: Taps into the insomniac vein of music successfully mined by Fever Ray and Bat For Lashes and shares their conflation of the fantastic and the mundane. Niki & The Dove’s take on this shtick is slightly more self-conscious in its gestures towards ‘epic’ and more actively danceable. The balance is a smart one to strike, especially since Florence & co. have shown that there’s a market for mysteriousness-gone-pop.
[8]
Jer Fairall: Like one of Robyn’s dance floor melodramas after being worked over by Florence Welch or Zola Jesus, this makes the fundamental error of ignoring the former’s ebullience, resulting in possibly the most ponderous and least fun song ever to have “DJ” in the title. This isn’t to ignore a rather impressive sense of atmospheric texture — the music is somewhat tantalizingly eerie, and those drums land with a hollow thud that is definitely felt; it’s just a total drag to listen to.
[4]
Jonathan Bradley: A Robynian sentiment delivered in the paranoid tones of The Knife’s Silent Shout. The tension doesn’t really augment the theme though; there’s a logical connection between an air of creeping dread and a plea for one’s mind to be eased, but Niki & The Dove doesn’t connect the dots. They evoke a particular feeling well, but here it’s a feeling unmoored from any lived situation: nothing is at stake.
[6]
Michaela Drapes: Feeling this anesthetized and numb is not exactly what I want out of a “hit the dance floor and dance the pain away” anthem. Just goes to prove that the Swedes are indeed fallible — attempting to splice Robyn with The Knife and mapping the results on “Downtown” is a really terrible idea.
[3]
Katherine St Asaph: You’re talking with someone, then you’re talking with someone, then you hear a song; within a day, those aren’t separate events anymore. The song’s soaked in swooning, and it’s part yours. Then something stops, and your song isn’t yours at all. But it’s still around, popping up on shuffle and plopping atop your best-of list and waving from the windows of every goddamn car. You can’t stand listening, but you can’t not respond; there’s this masochistic need, the same that makes you reread old letters, to play it again. That’s the difference between “DJ, Ease My Mind” and the standard DJ plea: there’s no escapism, just grim determination. It’s why the pre-chorus’s “I want peace” sounds like — and to rhyme, should be — “I want fear.” It’s why the chorus never really satisfies; the rhythm’s too halting, and the melody slumps instead of soars. You could dance to this, but it’s better suited to standing in the middle of the crowd, looking around, then up, then blinking, then rubbing out tears. Robyn would muster up joy anyway. Karin wouldn’t even try. They’re both valid, replayable approaches. So is this.
[9]