‘Summer Rain’: Life Aquatic Band have us dancing through the downpour
For Sheffield‘s Life Aquatic Band, everything’s a party. That might seem easier said than done a lot of the time these days, with the world falling to pieces and society seemingly imploding around us, but ultimately, if you can’t find the joy in dancing through a rainstorm on the height of a summer evening, is it even worth being alive at all?
That’s exactly the ethos of what the dance-punk five-piece are embodying on their latest single ‘Summer Rain’, taken from their upcoming EP, Stuck in the Mud. To be clear, there is no attempt made here to cultivate some kind of deeply profound or reflective lyricism – the same six lines are simply repeated three times over throughout the course of an almost four-minute song – but that does allow you the chance to become truly embedded in the imagery, rather than just have a fleeting glance.
The setting is plain but visceral: “There’s nothing in the world that I wouldn’t do/ To feel your fingertips on my skin/ No umbrella, just sweet summer rain,” that immediately captures a tenderness amid the dreaded fucking hammering of the monsoon. It’s almost like reckoning with the idea that you might not make it out the other side, so you might as well take in every goddamn part of your sensory experience while you have it right now.
This leads precisely into the heart of what the band were trying to reflect in the muses of ‘Summer Rain’, both from a lyrical and sonic perspective. Written during monsoon season in Japan, its hammering tempo and slick synths come to parallel the torrential rain of the storm itself. But within this, there is also an undercurrent of something sinister: clashing harmonies, blaring drones. It’s a gnawing pit of anxiety that something unknown is about to explode.
Typically, we consider dance music to be a genre centred on the principles of being uplifting and completely unifying. But the reality is that the best examples always include just a hint of this uneasiness – as if you’ve been having the time of your life in complete obliviousness, but suddenly that bubble pops, it’s 3AM, and you have no idea where you are.
That moment of sudden sobriety is exactly what gives ‘Summer Rain’ its most powerful punch, masterfully setting them up for a potentially darker road they are about to venture down through the rest of the EP. They cite classic influences like Devo, The B-52’s, and LCD Soundsystem as leading that charge, but there are also some far more contemporary likenesses. Think of the storms that brew in the likes of Lykke Li’s ‘I Follow Rivers’ or Mark Ronson and Yebba’s ‘Don’t Leave Me Lonely’ – they fill the dancefloor, but also leave the pulse racing.
As such, the Life Aquatic Band are prepared to leave you swimming in the midst of a tsunami of emotions by the end of ‘Summer Rain’, which is a hell of a lot to accomplish for a track that seemingly begins by celebrating the sheer joy of what it is to be alive. That psychedelic party spirit doesn’t ever diminish, but it is ultimately offset by something far darker and ominous. Let’s head out to dance in the rain – because this might be the last time we ever get to appreciate it.
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