Thursday 9/10: BUMPER—"Black Light"
Today, we share our thoughts on a new song by the duo of Michelle Zauner (Japanese Breakfast) and Ryan Galloway (Crying).
Welcome to Endless Scroll, the brainchild of Eli Enis (he/him) and Eric Bennett (they/them). Since Feb. 2019, we’ve been a weekly podcast about music, the internet, and where those two things intersect. Now we’re, also a M-F newsletter about songs. Our format is simple: a link to a song and a short take from each of us about what we think of it. Each day of the week has a corresponding genre: Monday is indie, Tuesday is punk, Wednesday is hip-hop, Thursday is pop, and Friday is misc.
Today, we share our thoughts on a new song by the duo of Michelle Zauner (Japanese Breakfast) and Ryan Galloway (Crying).
BUMPER—“Black Light”
Eric Bennett:
While this year has been full of horrors, it has also given us lots of music that likely wouldn't have existed without the gaping hole that was quarantine. BUMPER, the surprise side project of Japanese Breakfast and Crying, is one of these lovely gifts. “Black Light” is far and away my favorite of the songs on their new EP. Its pulsing, stark synth is sleek and stylish, which are both words car commercials often use. The soundscape here is also like a car commercial soundtrack, but in the best way possible. This new height of pop framing brings out the ever present Carly Rae Jepsen energy within Michelle Zauner’s voice. It’s vaguely dark club music, but doesn't make me miss actual clubs.
Eli Enis:
Fans of Japanese Breakfast know that Michelle Zauner is no stranger to far-out synth-pop. The sci-fi gem “Machinist” from her 2017 record Soft Sounds From Another Planet remains one of the most spectacularly weird yet successful pivots an “indie-rocker” has made in the last decade. And in Crying, Ryan Galloway and his bandmates fuse giddy chiptune and what sounds like theme music from a Super Smash Bros. stage with pulsing hair metal riffs and bouncy power-pop. Their individual ranges are so vast that I didn’t know what to expect when I gave pop songs 2020 a spin, but I was pleasantly surprised to hear that BUMPER is their crisp and punctuated take on Japanese city pop from the ‘80s.
The cover of this project looks like something that might be released by the vaporwave label Business Casual, and there’s a ravishing synth solo on “Black Light” that would make a city pop legend like Tatsuro Yamashita blush. I’m not an expert on this stuff, and most of my knowledge on the genre comes from Rob Arcand and Sam Goldner’s comprehensive city pop primer from back in 2019. But I do know that “Black Light” is really good for what it is: lovably chintzy synths, a funky-as-hell bassline, and vocals with type of effects that evoke the futuristic qualities people in 1982 imagined we’d be basking in today. Plus, the production on here is clean as hell and Zauner’s voice fits perfectly within this synth-pop context. BUMPER rule.