Decisive Pink – Ticket to Fame (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 49:59 minutes | 963 MB | Genre: Art Pop, Electronic, Female Vocal
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Fire Records
Angel Deradoorian and Kate NV are Decisive Pink – Ticket To Fame is their highly anticipated debut. After teasing the single ‘Haffmilch Holiday’ the duo amassed a rapturous response, with The Guardian calling it “a space-age-dancefloor swoon that brings to mind Kate Bush’s Waking the Witch” and the New York Times highlighting the single as “substantive and thoroughly hypnotic”. On their first LP they do not disappoint, calling on Kate NV’s experimental pop leanings and Angel Deradoorian’s taste for atmosphere and otherworldliness, Decisive Pink have created a playful and abstract album designed for escape and enchantment.
Electronic pop at it’s finest, the debut points to the fact that life is a puzzle, but you can still get a lot from living it. ‘Destiny’ is a smart take on the nature of belief, built on a question-and-answer format, where Angel plays a role as the seer, and Kate the enquirer. The poppy beat is reminiscent of Talking Heads’ ‘The Great Curve’, from Remain in Light. There again, it could be a sinister take on Will Powers’ ‘Kissing with Confidence’. The synth squeaks, squelches and toots sound like the timid affirmation of the initiate.
Ticket to Fame is also unashamedly romantic in atmosphere and tone. Romance is to be found in the simple pleasures, such as listening to a blackbird on the instrumental ‘Rodeo’, where warm synths, a melancholic guitar pattern and hissing rhythm combine with some vocal snippets to form a soothing contemplation. Then there is ‘Ode to Boy’; a perfect pop track. The walking into the room of “more than just an ordinary boy” (doubtless “drunk with fire”) allows a set of initially different, and shortened synth patterns to build to a glorious affirmation of the power of love.
Lovechild of the kindred introverts Angel Deradoorian and Kate NV, Decisive Pink has finally stepped up with their hotly anticipated debut, Ticket to Fame. It’s a flamboyant and whimsical portal into an experimental krautrock and pop mixture, which exudes a singular tone that seamlessly aggregates the distinct character of both its authors. Tucked away in the sanctuary of their “synth-dome”—a friend’s recording studio in Cologne, which has since served as their base of operations—Deradoorian and NV’s mutual disconnect from the outside world seems to permeate the tone of the album. Bashful instrumentation and buoyant, incidental synths harmonise from the very first track, “Haffmilch Holiday,” as cutty bleeps, new-wave saws and metronomic 808 percussion tick gently across the bar lines. Combined with the words, which convey their own sense of childlike escapism, the result is this picturesque, idyllic quality—the kind which would pair well with a Wes Anderson film, or a romp around the park with your dog. That same cinematic quality is echoed elsewhere in the album, like the angsty teen-movie ballad “Ode to Boy,” as well as the space-age synth-pop odyssey “Cosmic Dancer.” Other high points are reached with the distorted quasi-slam-poetry of “What Where,” and the inquisitive “Destiny,” both of which conjure up a thick mystical atmosphere, using voodoo flutes and anxious vocals. Overall, it’s a debut which assuredly demonstrates the atypical, adventurous nature of this collaboration, and promises a whole lot for the future. More please! – Finn Kverndal
Tracklist:
01. Decisive Pink – Haffmilch Holiday (04:15)
02. Decisive Pink – What Where (03:58)
03. Decisive Pink – Ode to Boy (05:24)
04. Decisive Pink – Destiny (05:58)
05. Decisive Pink – Potato Tomato (03:07)
06. Decisive Pink – Voice Message (01:45)
07. Decisive Pink – Cosmic Dancer (07:10)
08. Decisive Pink – Rodeo (05:24)
09. Decisive Pink – Interludé (02:29)
10. Decisive Pink – Dopamine (05:51)
11. Decisive Pink – Dusk (04:32)
