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CMU Approved
Approved: Doldrums – Hotfoot
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 14 January 2015
Five years ago, Doldrums, aka Airick Woodhead, emerged as an exciting new force in music. Buoyed by an association with Grimes, he seemed like someone so bursting with ideas that he couldn’t always contain them – both on record and in his live shows. Then, in 2013, he released his debut album, ‘Lesser Evil’, which (for me, at least) did some of the necessary work of honing those ideas but lost a large part of that initial spark in the process.
This week he returns with ‘Hotfoot’, the first single from his second album ‘The Air Conditioned Nightmare’. The track follows a clear line from Woodhead’s previous work but is delivered with a newly sharpened focus. Raw and aggressive, but also melodic and very clear in its intention, the ideas are both honed and exciting.
“Conflict is at the heart of this album”, he says. “There’s a lot of paranoid sentiment and Dystopian imagery in there. The threat of a mundane reality ties it together, as does an obsession with plasticity. Songs come from specific feelings or images. Anxiety is my default state”.
‘The Air Conditioned Nightmare’ is due out through Sub Pop on 6 Apr. You can listen to ‘Hootfoot’ here: