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Other People

  • Atlantic
  • Grow Up

UK synth-pop producer's debut for Atlantic sees a digital-only release-- only after he's quit the project to work under a different guise.

Maybe someday we'll learn more about what happened in the process of making Other People, Joe Flory's first-- and, allegedly, last-- record as Primary 1. In fact, any tidbit would be more helpful than the scraps of info we have. Initially scheduled for a release last fall, the UK synth-pop producer's proper debut for Atlantic was postponed, replaced with an effervescent, new-wavey single, "Never Know", as well as a corresponding candy-painted clip, with a tentative LP release date for "February 2011." That deadline came and went. Then, in the beginning March, the record was unceremoniously dumped onto the Internet as a UK-only digital release, announced a mere 10 days prior and billed as Primary 1's "posthumously released debut album." An attached statement noted that Flory was already working on new music under a different guise. That particular item was framed a bit like a promise, but it felt more like an apology.

So, what happened? It's possible that Flory encountered the same obstacles that would trip up anyone making the transition from bedroom beat fiddler (see: 2009's pleasantly loping, intermittently charming mini-LP Mess Detective) to major label Pop Artist. That theory doesn't scan too well, though, when you consider Flory's innate pop sense, as evinced by "Never Know" and the brazen, dizzying melodic spirals of "Princess". It's hard (although not entirely impossible) to imagine any label willing to stifle such a playfully accessible voice. Maybe he cracked under self-applied pressure; he told Tom Breihan in a Rising interview last year that the idea of creating something more tangibly coherent than his bedroom-pop collection Mess Detective was proving "really, really difficult."

Regardless of the hows and whys, Other People often feels as unexpectedly rush-jobbed as its release date. Front-to-back, the record feels disjointed and scattershot, as the "hits"-- namely, "Princess" and "Never Know", as well as Flory's exquisite Bowie-esque collaboration with the Cardigans' Nina Persson, "The Blues"-- are placed throughout the LP and tempered mostly with overcast mood pieces that verge on MOR-pop purgatory. These slower cuts sometimes work-- closing track "Get Rope", for example-- but otherwise they interrupt any chance at an even flow. The dirge-like "Magic" is anything but, and even a track like "Swimming Pools", which worked on Mess Detectives and fit more to that release's bedroom aesthetic, sounds quite out of place here.

We may never know what the problem was with Other People, but it's far from a disaster. As the title of the album's opening track suggests, it's an "A-OK" effort, and pop aesthetes will find a fair share to salvage before the whole thing disappears in a sinkhole of 1s and 0s. As "final" releases go, though, the whole thing is less of a disappearing act and more of a slow, hope-nobody-notices retreat. Whatever he does next-- if we do, in fact, hear from him again-- well, let's just hope he's got his nerve back by then.

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