Backyard Opera

View Original

Mix of the Week 12/12: Polish Club’s “nye_2020_megamix.exe”

Polish Club have had a stellar 2019 and are capping it off with an exciting New Year’s Eve mix. From releasing their second album, Iguana, to national tours with bands like DZ Deathrays, Polish Club have a lot to be proud of this year. The Sydney rock band have one of the most infectiously fun personalities, oozing charisma in every performance, podcast, DJ set and online post. Somehow, Polish Club have channelled this side of themselves into one final release before the new decade begins. The “nye_2020_megamix.exe” is the perfect party starting mix, containing six covers and an all new original song for New Year’s Eve.

The mix is short, at only seventeen minutes, but jam packed with fun tracks. The opening is the only new piece from Polish Club. “Countdown” has a very specific New Year’s theme, with lyrics about drinking too much and failing to make resolutions, but is a competent song outside of that context. It slowly builds in intensity as it moves towards the chorus, building anticipation like the countdown to the new year. This simple structure, along with Polish Club’s easy to listen to rock sound, makes it an exciting new track. The other big song is Polish Club’s cover of “Young Hearts Run Free” by Candi Staton, which first debuted in their set during DZ Deathrays’ “Positive Rising: Part 1” Tour. It is a good indication for the rest of the covers. As the initial humour of the rocky instrumentation playing pop music fades, the quality of these songs take over. The comedic tone makes the covers fun, putting a smile on the audience’s face, but the expert song-writing stops these tracks from ever being comical, instead taking that fun tone and extending it to fun music. As it is a mix, most of the tracks are small and they all bleed into one another, unlike a studio album or single. A great example of these transitions comes between Kylie Minogue’s “On A Night Like This” and Real McCoy’s “Another Night”. Polish Club take the opportunity to briefly cover Fisher’s “Losing It”, which sounds exactly like you would think it would; a rock band playing Fisher’s “Losing It”.

Finishing the mix off with Canon in B-flat and some facetious ASMR, Polish Club get their infectious personality across one last time. The whole mix is a great collection of tracks that take Polish Club’s exciting 2019 and push the momentum forward into 2020.

Listen here: https://polishclub.lnk.to/nye2020megamix