June 13th, 2011 1:00am
Your Face In The Mirror
Inc. “Swear”
You know how sometimes when a headphone plug is only partly in the jack you can hear a hollowed-out, ghostly version of a song? Inc.’s “Swear” sounds a little bit like doing that trick with a late ’80s Prince or Jimmy Jam/Terry Lewis track. The biggest difference is in the vocals — the phrasing is about what you’d expect from the music, but it comes out sounding extremely shy. It’s like a My Bloody Valent version of the Minneapolis sound — accompaniment is foregrounded, and the voice becomes a textural element that suggests intimacy and intense yet muted emotions.
Pre-order it from 4AD.