Hybridgaze – what’s that? It’s a new genre I’ve just made up, which involves stitching together artist A-meets-artist B comparisons and calling it a music review. Normally music journos are better than musicians at – what do you call it? – this labelling thing, but Danish drum and bass shoegaze duo 100%WET are the exception to my made-up rule. They’re pioneers of their own invented hypergaze genre, and it would be better to open your ears than roll your eyes.
‘Lost Myself’ is also the opening track on Longpigs’ debut album, but there the similarity with the savagely underrated Sheffield indie legends ends. The track begins with reverbed acoustic strums then 10 seconds in there’s a flurry of skittering drum and bass beats. The languid vocals supplied by Polly (AKA Amalie Petri) give it an ‘Underwater Love’ feel, and three minutes in it turns into triumphant Sneaker Pimps. The paradoxically euphoric interjection “I don’t know how to connect” on ‘Ether’ could have come from a Major Lazer & MIA duet. The second half of the track is a frantic, swirling, My Bloody Valentine–Stone Roses hybrid. We’re only two tracks into the album and a lie down might be required.
‘Looking In from the Inside’ is comparatively calmer, yet there are breakbeats throughout, which might remind you of Emile Sandé in her heyday – back when we were good at stuff like hosting the Olympics and appreciating people from different countries. The opening riff on ‘Re-Emerging’ is country done by The Cure, and the beats seem to have been recorded next door. The rest of the track meanders like Evanescence lost in the woods. Until listening to the drop at the 0:25 mark in ‘Over Me’, I had never head-banged to drum and bass in my life. It, and the whole track, is impossibly thrilling. I just want to ditch my laptop and lie in a field in wait for the main stage to be built. At four minutes in it becomes Billy Corgan-taking-a-breather-before-the-final-crushing-chorus, then Polly and a pitch shift bring us gently down.
Two Packs of Red Apples sounds like it might be an obscure fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, so I checked on Google and I was told that “it sounds like you’re looking for a simple “two packs of red apples” and not a reference to Hans Christian Andersen’s work. If you’re in a store, you can just ask for two packs of red apples.” Who knew that AI could be so patronising? Anyway, the 100%WET track ‘Two Packs of Red Apples’, which is evidently not inspired by that particular great Dane, is completely different to the preceding five tracks – pretty, acoustic-led, and like a very confident Stina Nordenstam.
Most of ‘Leave It’ sounds like what would play in the background in a mid 2000s high school movie as students move in slow motion so they can linger in their own youthful beauty. If you don’t know what that sounds like, you’ll have to buy the album. ‘Carat’ is Girls Aloud produced by Dr Dre. ‘Warmblooded’ starts off as standard funereal Sigur Rós, then the cello bow on the guitar is chopped up and distorted. Typical of the hybridgaze genre, the track develops into a School of Seven Bells meets Doves epic.
But what of the future of hypergaze? Is there one? I really hope so. At times on their eponymous album, 100%WET perhaps lean towards experimentation at the expense of song structure. However, most notably on the borderline genius ‘Over Me’, you’ll possibly be too dazzled to care. If your mate told you they’d made a drum and bass shoegaze album, you would rightly shush them and point out that it’s their round. But your mate didn’t make 100%WET – 100%WET did, which is a good job. A very good job.
100%WET is out now on Crunchy Frog Records
