Lol Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee give Fred Armisen something to break on “We Got To Move” featuring Isaac Brock
Super-projects of incredible magnitude often collapse under their own weight, burdened by stratospheric levels of expectation and anchored to past accomplishments like a collection of disparate buoys bobbing along coincidentally entangled in the same cultural fishnet. It can be forgiven when eyebrows are expectedly raised in response to a project spartanly labeled as each member’s individual names connected by a simple ‘x’ releases a slickly produced video with even more adjacent star power sucked into the orbit of already supermassive talent.
Lol Tolhurst (The Cure), Budgie (Siouxsie and the Banshees), and producer Jacknife Lee (R.E.M, U2, The Killers, The Cars, et cetera…) have joined forces into one such super-project dead set on proving wrong the curse of collaboration, and the group’s latest single “We Got To Move” proves that this collective of alt-rock godheads has what it takes to break the mold once again.
A thick electronic rhythm is propelled by skittering percussion, accented by digital embellishments that crank the nervous energy up to 11 instigating an automatic full-body twitch uncontrollable as it travels from follicles to feet. Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock provides a vocal performance delivered with the rapid-fire clipped cadence of an aerobic fitness instructor on uppers whipped into a bloodshot frenzy of manic action. By the time the track gets to the hook it has already been worked into a frothy sweat, locking into an infectious handclap groove with a gang vocal chorus guaranteed to get everyone in earshot caught up in a wave of inescapable momentum. The track barrels towards conclusion like a teakettle boiling over, progressively building pressure as the top rattles and steam begins to pour out white hot on the repetitious line “we got to move!” before ending, abruptly, in absolute silence.
Directed by Daniel Rashid, “We Got To Move” enlists the ever reliable Fred Armisen for a demolition derby of household materials shattered under hammer with relentless aplomb. High-speed cameras capture the destruction in exquisite detail, reveling in the beauty of deconstruction flanked by the percussive performance of Tolhurst and Budgie banging out the rhythm on upturned canisters. Brock’s vocal performance projects from the cracked screen of a discarded television lodged in the folded sheet metal of a totaled sedan. The collective scene is one of consumerist carnage, goods and products reduced to their most elemental at the whims of a man armed only with the power to destroy.
From such a thrilling opening salvo it is apparent that Lol Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee are a perfectly matched trifecta, and the upcoming album Los Angeles will be worthy of the attention these combined talents can attract. Stream “We Got To Move” on Spotify and follow the group on Instagram.