Chairlift apply the Eighties gloss

By Hazel Sheffield

“Something” is a vague title for a carefully thought-out record. This is the second album from Chairlift, an art-school duo from Brooklyn comprising Caroline Polachek (above) and Patrick Wimberly. It expresses their calculated opposition to what they call “music on steroids”. Informed by their backgrounds—Polachek studied art at New York University, and Wimberly learned jazz in Colorado—the pair turn their backs on modern pop’s full-throttle production and tinny compression. They have found a third way, which leads back to the roomy recordings of the French new-wavers Indochine and the glossy finish of Eighties chart-toppers like Tears For Fears and A-Ha.

Few would have expected such an accomplished follow-up to Chairlift’s cluttered 2008 debut, which reached the mainstream only when a track called “Bruises” featured in an iPod Nano advert. This time they achieve a dazzling coherence by sticking to uniform sounds. “Sidewalk Safari” marries drum machines and handclaps in the line “I’m going to hunt you down”, while “I Belong in Your Arms” is an updated “Take on Me”, with Polachek’s vocal soaring into a galaxy of twinkling synthesisers.