In ‘Night Walkin’’, MermaidS carry quite an interesting idea down a long city street in the middle of the night after a long stretch of clubbing, open the door to its house for and tuck it into bed.
You can do nothing but expect a build when a track presents you with a pulse and riff like the one Night Walkin’ does, and when the song is six-minutes long and the build you expect doesn’t come along there is quite a large animal part, in the music-loving department of your brain, that just turns in and goes to sleep.
It’s lucky that there is a Part 2, in which the beat finally drops, waking the animal violently – forcing it to get up and dance.
This is a primitive way of reviewing a piece, not everything relies on a drop or shift in rhythm.
However, so as to keep listeners of a fast-paced genre such as this interested, particularly with a track this long, an artist should be prepared to attend to their animal urges.
Great use is made of an old jazz trope in the tracks intro, combining it with a simple techno beat, weaving a strong thread of both old and new.
The soulful vocals possess a powerful, dreamlike quality, but they wouldn’t if the lyrics were not so in keeping with the steady, night-lit feel of the music: “night people, hanging out, looking at each other, waiting for something to happen.”
This is exactly how I felt listening to this track, like I was waiting for something to happen, perhaps in terms of the narrative of the music this left something to be desired, but in terms of the imagery it captured it made for a very interesting listen.
It reminded me a great deal of the music video to Stromae’s ‘Alors On Danse’; I imagined the vocalists as some sort of troubled protagonist, wandering through scenes of semi-mirth whilst not engaging with his surroundings, but being led by their influence.
In this respect the track is particularly sensitive to observation and does wonders in conjuring up an abstract of a scene; this is its forte and it is sufficient to override any criticism to do with it’s dancability.
In all, a thought-provoking track, unnecessarily long, but with enough intelligent elements that it captures the imagination deeply.
By the time it is tucked into bed, the idea will have left you with an impression that may well follow you into your own.
Words: Patrick McCafferty
