Chew Lips: Everybody Loves The Unicorn

Chew Lips makes me want to move around my room in a way I haven’t in a while. Three people from London—Tigs singing, Will Sanderson and James Watkins on everything else—and you can hear where they’re coming from immediately. Prince, LCD Soundsystem, the electropop that kept flowing out of Britain in the 2000s. It all landed in Unicorn, their January album, and it works.

There’s a moment around now where electronic music sounds both inevitable and like it’s running out of things to say. Everyone’s pulling from the same sources. Most of it is fine, competent, perfectly fitted to its moment. Chew Lips sounds like they’re not really thinking about any of that. Tigs sings like she means it, the whole thing just moves. It’s the quality of people making exactly the music they want to make.

I haven’t seen them live, and they’re not touring much beyond London and France as far as I can tell, which is fine. This will probably sound very 2008 in a few years—all period production and dated choices. Right now it just lands right.