Experimental pop musicians
Christopher Dexter Greenspan
, aka
oOoOO
, and
Asia
, better known by her solo project moniker
Islamiq Grrrls
, collaborated on an album in 2018 under their solo aliases (
Faminine Mystique
). They return two years later as
Drab City
with an equally arty, more retro-inflected project debut,
Good Songs for Bad People
. A distinctive blend of dub, exotica, and contemporary indie-electronic pop, its highly stylized, '70s-arthouse vibe is strongest on a track like "Working for the Men." It evokes the soundtrack of a faded color film, one full of jump cuts and unsmiling leads. The song's ethereal, meandering melody floats over a pattern of arpeggiated guitar, syncopated bass, rim-clicks, and ornamental flute built from yearning harmonic progressions. To set the stage for that,
opens with a nearly 90-second instrumental prologue that plays like heavily warped vinyl ("Entering Drab City"). A more straightforward vintage pop entry is "Just Me & You," which pays tribute to the era of lovelorn harmony vocal groups and girl groups in 6/8 time. The album moves into glitchier territory toward the end, with the spacy dub and funk of "Live Free & Die When It's Cool." That track features
Greenspan
's lead vocal and ends with lengthy guitar and bass solos. Final track "Standing Where You Left Me" then begins with multiple electronic alarms and rhythmic blips before settling into a murky, organ-based lament by
. While a little unfocused stylistically, the recordings have a consistently dreamy, submerged sound quality that evokes a past life or at least an obscure record-store find. While the songs' narratives present Drab City as a disappointing destination full of broken hearts and gentrification, its immersive musical allure makes it worth the price of passage. ~ Marcy Donelson