London-based FOURMARKS has just released a brand new single, “Reflection”, a song that from its very first note finds a way to make itself at home on the dancefloor. After all, “Reflection” is exactly that – a moment of self-reflection that FOURMARKS allows itself to share with the listener in all its raw, vulnerable and shameless truth. The title is stated with clarity right there in the first line of the song’s lyrics: “emotional disintegration has got me dreaming of you”. The spilt-heart, knee-to-the-ground honesty of Marc Singh-Jones’ frontman vocals sets the stage for one of the year’s most emotionally compelling dancefloor songs. The production wisely keeps the song from sinking for long in its central melancholy, instead adding a robust sense of rhythmic momentum and pulse to the song’s yearning instrumentation.
It’s hard to not move to “Reflection”, a song that stomps with a hard four-on-the-floor beat, bright arpeggiated synth lines and sharply syncopated piano stabs. The crisp snare and attention-grabbing bassline underpin FOURMARKS’ aesthetic signature sound here – the Italo-house and punk-funk grooves and tones of the 80s and early 90s that serve as a touchstone for much of the band’s earlier work. But “Reflection” isn’t interested in being a simple retread. It’s more circuitous than that, incorporating the band’s typical fondness for vintage sounds with modern production techniques and a layered, densely active sound that both nods at the past and lives entirely in the present. Tension ebbs and flows throughout, propelled by a sense of release that makes dancing an act of mourning as much as celebration. If there’s any doubt about the overall tone of the song, it quickly dissipates as the song’s chorus arrives to offer the refrainca”I know a place we can dance”. It’s the kind of line that might work in the context of an overplayed party anthem but, in “Reflection”, it instead makes for a moment of sincere transcendence.
The band’s Marc Singh-Jones shares that “Reflection” was written as part of a period of deep introspection, while Marc Singh-Jones was spending time at a Buddhist centre, as well as during meditation in his home studio. In that context, the heart of the song’s musical centre of gravity – the bubbling four-on-the-floor beat – makes a lot more sense as a vehicle for dancefloor catharsis that it did initially. If dance was the solution FOURMARKS arrived at while writing and recording the song, “Reflection’ is also a lot of other things as well. It’s a song about escape, for sure, but it’s also a song about connecting, and a song about clarity and emergence, about becoming whole again after fading away. If you like the soulful playfulness of Hot Chip, or if you’re a fan of 80s and early 90s synth-pop with all of its emotional extremes, then FOURMARKS’ “Reflection” is just the balm for your dance-soul.
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