The subject is the quiet tyranny of being told you are unwell for disagreeing. St John has said the language of mental health can be turned into a gag, as though a dissenting opinion were a symptom to be managed. It is a prickly thing to hang a pop single on, and a lesser act would have turned it into a seminar. Ooberfuse write it as a song, and the argument goes down as melody first and manifesto second. That ordering is the difference between a record people absorb and one they merely endorse.<\/p> Anderson is the reason it lands. Hers is a voice that has filled the London Palladium and wandered the fields at Greenbelt, and it carries both rooms’ worth of authority and warmth. She sings like someone who has been talked over and has decided, without bitterness, to stop waiting for a gap. St John’s production gives her somewhere to stand: electronic pop with guitar in its bloodstream, polished enough for the radio and unruly enough to keep the polish honest. Their touring years behind Heather Small and The Overtones show in the craft. Nothing here is wasted, and nothing begs for attention it hasn’t earned.<\/span><\/p> The song is also generous, which is rarer than it should be. Protest records tend to hector. “Electrify” holds the door open instead, asking how freely any of us can speak when difference gets filed under pathology, and leaving room for the listener to answer. The release insists, rightly, that anxiety and exhaustion are real, and that the pressure to keep up and fit in leaves many people overwhelmed and unwilling to say so. The song takes both ideas seriously at once, which is harder than choosing a side and shouting from it.<\/span><\/p> Then there is the video, which deserves its own paragraph and probably a small trophy. Haydn West, who shot and cut it himself, has made a film with the thrift-shop glamour of a great fanzine. Performance footage from a hacked Panasonic GH2 sits beside analogue stills from an Olympus Pen EE2-S, and the grain and imperfection give the whole thing a pulse that digital gloss tends to sand off. West uses AI sparingly, animating a few stills and conjuring a single extra image, so the new tools serve the old cameras rather than replacing them. It is a DIY production, and it looks like one in the best sense: handmade, personal and slightly defiant, which suits a song about the right to be awkward.<\/span><\/p> The timing is pointed too. Releasing on the eve of World Mental Health Day could have been opportunism. Coming from a duo whose last few projects have given voice to rough sleepers, the displaced and the bereaved, it reads as continuity. “Hard Times” and Songs of Courage were about people flattened into labels. “Electrify” turns the same compassion inward, to the label that gets stuck on us when we step out of line.<\/span><\/p> Pop of conscience is easy to admire and hard to enjoy. Ooberfuse manage both. “Electrify” is a bright, intelligent and quietly brave single, with a video that proves resourcefulness beats budget. It asks whether anyone is prepared to listen. On this evidence, plenty of people should be.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\nhttps:\/\/www.ooberfuse.com\/<\/a>\n\n\n\n\n
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