Unmap - The Gold Route Review

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC0l6wGFuZ8 In the wake of the Mercury Prize panel announcing 2013's nominees in September, the NME were the first to question, is life-affirming pop enough? Sure, Rudimental, Jake Bugg and Disclosure may be the freshest faces that music has to offer us this year, but is that all music has to offer us? Rockstars might not dominate tabloids like they did in the 90's, but can no one come up with something deeper than 'Get Lucky'? Is the apocalypse of the industry coming, just as Thom Yorke tells us, and is music dead behind its gorgeous eyes? Challenging pop is something that Berlin four-piece Unmap's new single, 'The Gold Route', appears to want to do. It doesn't stick to obvious major chords, and it doesn't talk of one night stands or "domesticating" its subject; in fact, it sounds like a flipside to Haim: while thatsoft-rock sister act evokes sunny, LA optimism, 'The Gold Route' is icy, keyboard-led, very European uncertainty. And actually, it's about as current as anyone nominated for the Mercury, from the hip-hop stomp that Arctic Monkeys are channelling these days, to the shimmering synth intro reminiscent of James Blake. There's a watery quality to the way the vocals drip into the production; it sounds like the unveiling of a masterplan, before strings ascend and the song shapeshifts a few times, settling of course back into that frosty hip-hop beat. It's a thriller soundtrack for Moriarty to drop plot-twists to, or for Jason Bourne to skate across Paris to. It's clinical, almost business-like in its slinky melody, and it's infectious. Gothic, sexily funereal and unravelling in front of your eyes, but infectious all the same. Most of us are procrastinators with a Facebooker's attention span; we don't have time for albums, let alone new music (unless it has a quirky video of course); life-affirming pop may be more important than it ever has been in coaxing the music industry back to life. On the showing of 'The Gold Route' though, pop that grows on you is alive and well, and living in the minds of Unmap.