My Robot Friend - Soft-Core

  by Adrian Huggins

published: 8 / 1 / 2010

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My Robot Friend is the electronica musings of a certain Howard Robot. Kicking off with a keyboard fused with electric guitars and completed with chiming bells underneath it all, ‘Robot High School’ starts off the journey into 'Soft-Core' in appropriate style. Its subtly dark yet amusing lyrics are about Robot's time spent in school and the world as an institution. ‘Soft Core’ is a gentle and warm album and it has enough pop music sensibilities to keep you grinning the whole way through. There is enough depth in the music, however, to make you want to go back again and again to it. It veers from cheerful little numbers such as the beautiful ‘By Your Side’ which features vocals from Dean Wareham of Luna and Galaxie 500 and which lifts your spirit and warms your heart. With tracks such as the sarcastic and scathing ‘Boyfriend’, another facet of Robot is revealed. The latter of thes two tracks sounds not unlike a playground taunt and its chorus has a sugary sucker punch style which seems to be My Robot Friends weapon of choice. ‘The Short Game’ is another of many of the tunes on this album featuring guest musicicans/vocalists, in this case dance pioneers Zombie Nation. As one would imagine it sounds very dance orientated. Not afraid to delve into her 80's past, electro queen Alison Moyet lends her vocals to ‘Waiting’ which has an air of slightly less camp Erasure to it. Another highlight is ‘Failure’ which sounds like a cross between Weezer and Cornershop blended in with a massive dollop of Hot Chip. The final track (if you don’t count the fantastic bonus track ’23 Minutes in Brussels), is an alternative version of ‘Waiting’. This time it features Jay Kaufman on it. The song is stripped right down to just vocals and acoustic guitar and. with an almost blues sound to it, it sounds very much like something you might expect from Beck. My Robot Friend seems to be making friends with plenty of humans, particularly of the musician variety. He could be described as a being like Calvin Harris, but fora more mature audience. 'Soft-Core' is worth checking out if you’re a fan of bands such as Hot Chip, Styrofoam and Postal Service. It has so much charm and quirk about it that it feels like a massive hug from a cooky friend in a wacky Christmas sweater.

Track Listing:-

1 Robot High School
2 Misfits Fight Song (feat. Outputmessage)
3 By Your Side (feat. Dean Wareham)
4 Failure
5 Boyfriend!
6 The Short Game (feat. Zombie Nation)
7 Waiting (feat. Alison Moyet)
8 Astronaut (feat. Dean Wareham)
9 Mean
10 Sleepwalkers (feat. Outputmessage)
11 Waiting (feat. Jay Kauffman) (Acoustic Version)

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