Sonovac – ‘Human Fly’

This is a cover of a song by The Cramps: I have no idea what the original sounds like and I don’t particularly care. Forgive me, ageing punks: it’s early on a Monday morning, I’ve had about four hours sleep, and my first cup of tea of the day is still too hot to drink, so I’m not feeling particularly eloquent. And I don’t know much about Sonovac either, other than that they’re from London and are a brother and sister duo. Cover versions seem to be a speciality – they’ve also done the Ramones’ ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ and Springsteen’s ‘Dancing In The Dark’ to name but two. They may also have some connection with Japanese multi-instrumentalist and disco wizard Zongamin.

But all this is of little importance: what’s important is that ‘Human Fly’ is a terrific slab of sleazy electro pop. Albeit one which is very hard to categorize, like a lot of sleazy electro pop these days – you know, all that stuff that sounds different but somehow all fits together. The song has this jittery, stop-start rhythm to it which makes it ideal dancefloor music for me (…to be a dancing fool). There’s a nice unity of form and content in the way the lyrics suggest involuntary movement – “I go buzz buzz buzz and it’s just becuzzz” – while the song itself induces it. And even though the semi-detached “hey I might fuck you and not even notice I’m just THAT modern” vocal is being done to death right now, it still sounds drop dead cool in this context. Which makes it the perfect soundtrack for me to surf Friendster, checking out all the booty ghetto tech minor celebrities. Mmmm.

You can hear the song by clicking on the image here at Sonovac’s website. Speaking of flies: my name is Joe, and I’m proud to be the first guest blogger for this very special week at Fluxblog.