“Lex Luthor (with Deadrice)” is the sound of two friends declining to behave. It began, by their own cheerful admission, with a shouting stranger and a session on the Lego Marvel Superhero Game. Deadrice built a beat, mused aloud about having so much money he might be Lex Luthor, and instead of deleting the moment in a fit of professional embarrassment, the pair kept it. Then they built a whole song on top of it. Rock history is stuffed with grand manifestos, but few of them were conceived this honestly.<\/p>
The conditions are almost insultingly modest. One laptop, one microphone, one pair of headphones, one basement. Joe Meek had his bathroom and his tea chests, punk had three chords and a bad attitude, and here we have a Strange Dreamers Collective that has looked at the whole gleaming apparatus of the modern studio and shrugged. The results are written, performed, produced, mixed and mastered by two blokes who evidently trust their own ears more than anybody’s invoice. Good for them.<\/p>
What makes the thing so winning is its refusal to apologise for itself. WHYNOT’s guiding principle, relayed by Deadrice, is that you can take music seriously or you can simply have fun with it. It is a beautifully British sort of wisdom, the kind that would sit comfortably in a Half Man Half Biscuit lyric sheet or a Streets bedsit confessional. The best pop has always understood that silliness and sincerity are cousins who turn up to the same funerals and weddings. De La Soul understood it. The Beastie Boys built an empire on it. Now two lads in a basement are quietly carrying the torch, sleeves rolled up, grinning.<\/p> And grin you will. The whole record radiates the particular warmth of friends who have long since stopped performing for each other. Nobody here is auditioning for the playlist gods or contorting themselves to fit a trend. The humour is not a garnish laid over some more serious dish. It is the dish. Yet the sly suggestion, hinted at in the duo’s talk of deep conversations and a philosophy that can flip between the profound and the preposterous at will, is that this joke has a heart beating inside it. Songs this relaxed are rarely accidents.<\/span><\/p> WHYNOT himself, a man whose memorable quote about the track is “Imma goofy goober rock”, delivers himself with the confidence of someone who has nothing to prove and rather enjoys it that way. Deadrice, meanwhile, is that most valuable of collaborators: the producer who knows when to leave a wonderful stupid idea alone. Resisting the urge to tidy is a skill, and one that has ended careers more often than it has made them.<\/span><\/p> In a world where every release arrives wrapped in a mission statement and a marketing budget, “Lex Luthor” turns up in a hoodie, mouth full of crisps, and wins the room before it has finished its sentence. A music video is promised soon, and no live dates are planned, so for now the single will have to be enjoyed the way it was made: loudly, among friends, at home.<\/span><\/p> The forthcoming collaborative album is now a matter of genuine curiosity. If this is what the pair consider a favourite, the rest should be a riot.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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