John Kearney’s freshman release Acting Strange / dance4u comes as uncharacteristically put together single after a slew of disorganized multi-genre drops from the artist over the last two years. Today, POP ELIXiR dives into the newly released, alternative, multihyphenated soundscape of John Kearney.
Acting Strange
This first release is surprisingly short at only a minute thirty, but the song is split into two different sections, with similar but tempo-varied production. The song begins with Acting Strange; a melancholy, droning dancehall beat epoxied thick with vocal layers (but only for two bars?). The beginning section is nice, but we find it to serve mostly as an intro to dance4u.
The beat itself is not instrumentally complex, but maintains a very forward, midrange sound that compels the listener to focus more intently on the lyricism. Without the vocals, the beat sounds relatively hollow, and as much as the sound is enjoyable, we found ourselves wishing the mix was a bit smoother on the low end. We feel this would make the presentation slightly less aggressive and more inline with the (quite good) writing.
dance4u
Acting Strange cuts abruptly into dance4u, speeding up the same dancehall beat from before but blending a slightly more pop, dance influence into the drum patterning. The jumpcut is abrupt but entirely fits the aesthetic of the music, keeping variation and listener engagement high. John’s self disparaging tones from the first section change commensurately with the production, throwing us into an energetic, hopeful second song.
Kearney’s second two bars end with a SoundCloud remix style vocal flip that clearly draws upon his taste as a producer. We found ourselves repeating the last 30 seconds of this song the most, simply because the production seems familial to other vocal processing John has done in songs like in Twenty Five, Kearney’s niche Pinkpantheress remix.
dance4u seems to legitimize the existence of Acting Strange; these “two songs” fit quite well together. As much as we somewhat expected to hear more of the underground trap / rap influence Kearney has attenuated himself towards on SoundCloud; we enjoy this slightly more alternative pop just as much but for different reasons. Clearly, experimentation and work with a variety of John Kearney’s production credits have fed into his blend of vocal production. The result is crispy but quiet vocals a tier above the vast majority of first releases, especially from bedroom pop and indie artists.
Overall, we think John Kearney has good room to grow, but as far as freshman releases go, we really like this. Given that this is notably more similar to Frank Ocean and Rex Orange County than the Southside inspired production typically seen from Kearney, we’re interested to see what’s next for the upcoming artist.
We’ve added Acting Strange / dance4u – John Kearney to our Alternative Elixir playlist on Spotify. Like our playlist, or stream on any major platform / social media!