Plumage - Menomena.

I arrived unfashionably late to the Menomena party in 2010 with their album Mines. It’s energy and chaos instantly had me weaving through the traffic like it was 1999 and De Waal Drive was the set of Playstation’s Wipeout 3. I also found myself trundling through the streets of Cape Town (volume set to the maximum responsible amount of decibels) like a man in need of funding from the Ministry of Silly Walks.

The incredible cohesiveness of their collective songwriting pulls together the vastly different samples into beautifully crafted pieces, as if a random kitchen experiment accidentally produced the perfect Lemon Meringue Pie. Their latest effort Moms continues the tradition, albeit without Brent Knopf (the band had this to say, “We lost a major creative force in Brent, but thankfully, Brent’s not Kurt Cobain, and we’re not Nirvana. Brent’s more like Peter Gabriel and we’re more like Genesis. And everyone knows how much better Genesis got after that talentless hack Gabriel quit. Waitaminute…”).

Despite the loss, Menomena have continued as a duo, and have put together another humdinger album, soon to be topping my charts on last.fm. The opening track, Plumage, encapsulates everything I love about Menomena- spectacular percussion and a driving bass line that underpin the build-up of the smorgasbord of samples. The Blur-esque vocals smooth out the edges perfectly, the sweet meringue on the sumptuous sour pie, if you will. May this track make you drive irresponsibly, and walk humourously.

Contributed by @johnpienaar.