THE PERFECT KISS: "Filter" Mini LP 10"

Joe Mooreis incredible. Sometimes we wonder how time will treat the work of such a multifaceted, open-minded author. He offers us music as a whole, as an absolute. The arrangements, the melodies, these are the ends to which everything else is the means. Styles don’t matter, labels don’t matter. There are just songs. His new Mini-LP, “Filter”, released under the name of THE PERFECT KISS, the moniker he reserves for his most electronic compositions, makes this clear. Because just as he has played different styles of pop, the sixties sound and chamber music with his main project, THE YEARNING, with THE PERFECT KISS his musical language takes a major turn. Where “Disconnect”, THE PERFECT KISS’ debut Mini-LP, was a marvelous electro-pop treatise, “Filter” dives head first into italo disco, without letting go of the synth-pop. And again, it’s a triumph.

The eight songs on this 500-copy-numbered-limited-edition, magenta-colored, 10” vinyl are marvelous. While we listen to undeniable hits like “Indebted To You”, “Glitches” and “At The End Of The Rainbow”, we are reminded of FUTURE BIBLE HEROES and CHVRCHES, of ELECTRIC YOUTH and SAINT ETIENNE, of A-HA and YAZOO. With the beauty of “Talking To Myself”, “Compete” and “Trying Your Patience” we are taken from THE POSTAL SERVICE to OMD, from VISAGE to Ryan Paris. When we hear the sonic deformation of “Polaroid Dream” and the solid “Filter”, we think of Amanda Lear and THE HUMAN LEAGUE, of Giorgio Moroder and TELEX, of GAZEBO and YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA.

But the most important thing is that, in the end, we have a collection of absolutely perfect, solid, inimitable, exciting melodies – the kind that won’t let go of us while we move across the city in the wee hours of the morning. This is a perfect piece of work, without one unnecessary second, one unnecessary arrangement, with just the right touch of riskiness, without one single note that is not absolutely amazing. And all of this is also thanks to the essential, delicious voice of Holly Vanags, in all its dreaminess and freedom, perfect for Joe Moore’s songs.