Noirre’s “taste ($$$)”

The low hum of the synthesizers. A shimmering melody in the background. Beats that are hollow but riddled with texture. A vocal that is soft and velvety. The drone of the bassline. The brutality of an ensuing groove’s melancholy. This is “taste ($$$),” the new single from suave soloist Noirre, and whether you’re taking it in through the vicious visual delight that is its music video or simply spinning the song on its own, it’s a juggernaut of a pop track that is almost certain to leave you as stunned by its eccentricities as it will its startling depth of emotion. In a year that has been all about hybridity, Noirre packages something inventive that pushes the envelope as far as it can without devolving into utter inaccessibility.

 

While the music video for “taste ($$$)” revels in its postmodern absurdities – ranging from food to props associated with childhood innocence – and is, in many ways, as overindulgent as they come, it embraces its excesses and actually sports the look better than most ever could. Some audiences would look at this video and see nothing beyond its admittedly zany cosmetics in deciphering the track’s central narrative, but for the sophisticated music aficionado, the intricately arranged imagery is only one part of the story being told here. There’s an underlying theme of sexuality, self-awareness and introspection that is only implied in the cerebral structure of the video; when we take a closer look at the lyrics, we find a much deeper narrative amidst the controlled chaos.

 

 

The beats are soaked in psychedelia in this single and somewhat reminiscent of the swaggering strut that drove Disclosure’s “Latch” back in 2013. They’ve got a danceable groove and a lively energy that makes them more than adept for getting a packed nightclub pumped up, but at the same time their hypnotic, almost ambient construction makes them just as suitable for a late night car ride where only music is invited to join our innermost contemplations. On its own, “taste ($$$)” is an anthemic slow jam with an experimentalism that I desperately want to hear more of in Noirre’s future work, and when considering the video that accompanies its release, it’s a bold statement from an artist who is clearly operating on a new level of creativity.

If you’ve been looking for something different to spice up your spring playlist, you really need to give this excellent cut from Noirre a listen this April. So many of his closest rivals have been shying away from the style of camp that he’s utilizing exquisitely in this track, and though it has almost nothing in common with the stripped-down, understated sound that his scene has been delivering lately, its unique sonic profile is exactly what sets it apart from everything else that I’ve been reviewing in the last couple of months. Noirre has been making some really thought-provoking music in the last half-decade, and “taste ($$$)” meets the critical expectations that have come to surround the release of his high caliber content.

Mindy McCall