Nobody To Claim Your Space

The Heliocentrics “Burning Wooden Ship”

There’s really no getting around mentioning that The Heliocentrics are doing a Silver Apples thing with this song, right? The Silver Apples aesthetic – that crisp in-the-pocket percussion, the woozy vocal, the sci-fi synthesizer – is so distinctive that anyone who emulates it can’t really do so without it being a sort of tribute. It’s a great sound, though, and this band does a great job in interpreting it, particularly in the way the drum performance integrates a bit of the feel of Can’s Jaki Liebezeit circa Tago Mago. “Burning Wooden Ship” sounds like an excursion into the cosmos, especially as the percussion drops out and the song drifts off course in the middle section. When the song clicks back into its tight rhythm, it’s like the whole thing falls back into gravity.

Buy it from Bandcamp.