Moth
Brooklyn duo Chairlift have attained the synth-pop holy grail: They’re the Yaz of our time, filling their albums with perfectly sculpted, searchingly lovely tunes wrought from tense, tugging intimacy just as Vince Clark and Alison Moyet did on classic songs like “Bad Connection” and “Only You” 30 years ago. Yet Chairlift are built for our more casually eclectic times: Singer Caroline Polachek and her musical partner Patrick Wimberly share writing and instrumental duties, pulling from whatever genres suit their needs. “Polymorphous” sets the mood with a slippery-smooth electro-soul groove and Polachek firing off giddy metaphors for romantic possibility (“bungee-jumping on the upswing”); “Romeo” lofts a sheer melody over a skittering, incisive beat; “Moth to A Flame” is a summery disco reverie; and “Ch-Ching” is subtle skip-rope R&B with a beat that recalls old-school Timbaland and happy horn flares. The album’s sparkling centerpiece is “Crying In Public,” where Polachek’s inability to hold it together on New York’s streets and subways becomes the engine for a delicate heart-ripper – her man is wrecking her defenses, but it’s “the breakdancing boys and their boomboxes” that really open up the waterworks. Which makes sense: This is a record where love, music and love for music come together beautifully.