About two months ago, we were gifted Tom Misch’s first solo studio album in over five years as his new “club alter ego” Supershy. Although it’s not precisely the Tom Misch sound we know and love, it was a nice treat to hold us over until we get the long-awaited Tom Misch album. With two months to digest this funky, electro, disco album “Happy Music,” now felt like the perfect time to give a proper in-depth review.
The album commences with the song “Happy Music,” Supershy’s first single and first ever song that he released as his new alter ego, and it indeed feels like happy music. The song opens up with a four-bar drum fill that, although very different, has an iconic sound that reminded me of the drum fill at the beginning of Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You.” Followed by a crunchy synthetic bass line, melodic background vocals, funky disco drums, and a soulful chorus “singing happy music,” you hear echoed consistently throughout the song, my first thought is……Daft Punk. As we get into the second song, you get more of the same classic soulful sample-sounding vocals repeating throughout, chest-rumbling bass lines, and funky drums, but this time with an added layer of light synth chords and a lead guitar that sounds so funky you would think Nile Rodgers recorded it himself. Upon arrival to track three, we finally get those smooth low-end vocals from Tom Misch himself, repeating the oh-so-catchy “keep it rising” chorus that you can’t help but bop your head to. This song keeps building on the same while adding an arpeggiated synth line and an incredibly bright, highly reverbed saxophone solo that sounded like Grover Washington, Jr. came back from the dead for a quick eight bar.
As we continue deeper into the back half of the album, we get less guitar, soul vocals, and analog sounds with the introduction of more arpeggiated synths, reverbed vocals, and hard-hitting kick drums. Songs like “Something On My Mind” expand on a little more of an experimental side to this funky sound journey we’re taken on by Sir Tom Misch. The closing songs do a remarkable job of taking us into a darker, deeper part of the space while somehow keeping that “happy music” sound that this album represents. The final track, “Too Late I Had Fallen,” feels like the end to a long night in the discoteca, wishing it wasn’t over but happy it happened. It does an excellent job of embodying the entire album’s collective sound while simultaneously closing it out.
This album takes you on a sonic, disco, electro journey, favoring the disco to start, transitioning into more electro, and circling back to bring it all together at the end. There is a consistency and cohesion of sound across the entire record while still feeling like every song has its own distinct flavor. As a producer and someone who is very critical of the mixing and mastering process, this piece of work feels like a masterclass in everything production, blending analog instruments, synths, and a wide range of vocals, all affected in different ways to match each track. We get hints of that classic Tom Misch sound we know and love while getting a new, unique electro vibe we didn’t know we needed. This album continues to grow on me with every listen and is surely my favorite electronic album of the year thus far. You never know how an album will age, and it would be foolish to call something a classic after just two months of listening, but if aged correctly, I could see this record going down as one of my favorite electronic albums of all time.
Great review for a terrific artist.
incredibly well written!