ROOM8, the Stockholm-based production duo, always gets compared to the soundtrack to Drive. But it’s really the quality of that sound that resonates. That sense of time and place that blurred the line between an 80s synth pop sensibility with the R&B inflection favored by many of the groups from the UK and modern electrosoul compositional style made its songwriting ideal for a film with the aesthetics of Drive. Its new single “West (ft. Maverick)” has a similar vibe with bright tones and synth swells coupled with gently soulful vocals. A bit like a cross between Foreigner on “Waiting For a Girl Like You” and Giorgio Moroder’s “Scarface (Push It to the Limit).” A midpoint between the urgency of the latter and the languid pace of the former but that dreamlike quality of both and the vibrancy of sound placing it in a similarly compellingly liminal emotional space. Fun fact: Ezra Reich’s father is legendary avant-garde composer Steve Reich.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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