One of my favourite singles of last year came out in mid- December- it got a bit overlooked as a result but has grown and grown as 2024 has gone on, taking up more and more of my listening time. Anzu by C.A.R. is electro- pop perfection, throbbing acid house/ dance pop. It has wobbling synths, a smokey vocal telling tales of adventures in a pub now lost to market forces, singer Chloe weaving lines of personal history, hedonism and squalor into something quite moving. There's a darkness in the song, a yearning, and then the synths change, there are rippling toplines and chord changes and everything surges forwards. Drums thump in and Chloe picks up her theme, 'walls close in... guerrilla shadows, hopped on having fun'. Totally infectious and emotive dance music.
When it was released back in December it came with a GLOK remix, Andy Bell stripping it down and building it around a two word phrase from the lyric, 'basement sounds'. Last week a pair of Hardway Bros remixes came out, pushing Anzu further on into the disco. The Hardway Bros Remix is crunchy and cosmic, a four four stomper for souls dancing under the mirror ball or in the kitchen, Chloe's vocal on top of Sean's shimmering synths and arpeggios. Seven and a half minutes and not a second too long.
There's a second version too, the Hardway Bros Conqueror Dub, all wobbly oscillations, signature Sean synth sounds, funky drums, acid squiggles and heavy bottom end, Chloe still there singing of 'cigarette smoke' and giving half glimpses of the past. Buy them both here.
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