On Repeat: Sassy 009 Sends The Breakup Song Through A Wormhole In Blue Racecar
Tristan Young @talltristan
We’ve tossed around that idea of future perfect before; pop or electronic music that is aestheticized into something like the panicle of modern sound engineering, while also a prophetic window into its future. While the concept is somewhat oblique and intangible by design, oh wow dose Blue Racecar by Sassy 009 ever fit the bill perfectly. The project of Scandinavian electronic artist Sunniva Lindgaard, Sassy 009’s latest single is a lavishly slick and pristinely detailed offering of electro dream pop by way of tech house. The mixture of confidently dense synth pads and needle drop percussion is immaculate in its pacing but the high end adds a more euphoric quality to it, perfectly suited for the kind of dance floor dosing that merges depression and catharsis. Aerated blankets of elegant synth dissipate over the beat with a purifying and clarifying sense of grace, it’s perfectly linked with the rhetorical concept of a breakup song where she sings, “I’m starting off my game with a clean slate”. For all the body high dimensions of the song, it’s actually heavily lyrically populated. And while the lyrics are somewhat prosaic by design, Lindgaard maximises their sentiments and delivery to stunning degrees. As the song focuses on just how debilitating, but necessary getting over a relationship is, she efficiently segues from each emotional stage and finds a thoroughly engaging and indeed convincing through line between regret & defeat and defiance & confidence. Each of these stages is rendered with incredible fidelity based solely on the mastery of mixing her voice. Initially as she sings, “Sometimes I wonder, do you even care”, she seems ethereal to the point of fragility and the words trail off with a fleeting sense of retreat and regret. However the next lyrical sequence, “Do you see me when I’m flippin’ my hair”, is hardened with firmly intonated consonants with a crystalline air of durability and grace. The next line, “I was such a fool for loving you with all my heart”, is a dazzling display of lyrical acrobatics, breathlessly sweeping past the first three syllables only to lovingly but laboriously elongate the subsequent one, dwelling as much as possible on the idea. The execution is remarkable in how she flourishingly evangelizes the need to recon with reality for your own mental health. Her rhetorical mix of desire, regret, and confidence springs so immutably from that verse in ways that few lyrics this year have.