More often than not, a song that increases in depth and complexity as it plays on will successfully touch upon human compassion, and make for a more intensive listening experience. Such is the case in “The Master”, the new single from The Undercover Dream Lovers, off the forthcoming EP, While It’s In Style. The self-produced project from Matthew George Koenig operates in pop rhythms and dilapidated synth tones, which inject themselves into the psyche of the heart, and press against its inner walls to misshape it.
“The Master” is a slow-motion game of hopscotch on a rainy day, jumping from jazzed-up kick drum pounding to cooling piano tones to eerily deranged, yet soothing synth tones. Oddly delayed guitar goes through pitch shifting and squiggles along, like a single-celled organism under a microscope, towards the weighty destination of the chorus’ synthetic and stable bass. Its moody, yet pretty composition is conflicted in its feelings towards its subject, as airy, distant vocals sing down into the petri dish of sounds, “You can talk, but I won’t understand a fucker like you, man.” The protozoa-like synth returns, wormier than ever, for a brief funky interlude before all elements collide in the song’s swirling, yet crooning conclusion.
