Rat Heart: U Can See Alex Park From Ere / Picky Eater 7"

Rat Heart lands on Modern Love’s 7” series with two asymmetric ohrwurms, featuring Ben Vince on the stunning saxophone-led A side, with a wildly morose Spanish guitar ballad on the flip.

Tom Boogizm’s Rat Heart has already given us AOTY-worthy excursions into fizzing ambience, fritzed Arthur Russel-esque scuzz, flipped neo-soul and bleary-eyed bangers, always with those timeless hooks and wild-but-insular production. Never one to care much about fitting in with any one thing or another, Rat Heart evokes that golden stretch in the mid-late 80’s when heads got past the shine of new technology and started getting deep into the thing  - you know the stuff - Thomas Dolby, Prince, Prefab, Scritti.

In other words, Rat Heart is supremely well suited to the 45, giving sharp focus to his pop instincts, tightening the screws in a way that echoes contemporary work by Dean Blunt or Vegyn, you can imagine his thing properly going off too.

In fact, you don’t really need to stretch the imagination too much with this one, the A side guided by the spirit of Sade via Prince in a slow love mode, Ben Vince’s Saxophone providing an added layer of moody romance. On the flip, it’s all Spanish guitar and broken (heart|)strings, just a solitary synth and that gutted vocal for company. 

Greatness, obviously.