Live Review: Let's Eat Grandma's play Roald Dahl on 'Falling Into Me'

British duo LET’S EAT GRANDMA (ROSA WALTON and JENNY HOLLINGSWORTH) sound like they could’ve taken their name from a Roald Dahl book. On ‘Falling into Me’, the second single off their upcoming sophomore album, I’m All Ears, Let’s Eat Grandma want to draw you into the sonic equivalent of Dahl’s off-kilter, surrealistic worlds.

The record’s lead single, the SOPHIE-assisted ‘Hot Pink’, saw the teenage duo teasing out the experimental promises of their 2016 debut I, Gemini by moving away from the dream-pop found on that record and into a more club-ready sound with an aggressively ironic wink towards cultural signifiers of femininity. On ‘Falling into Me’, a stuffed six minutes brimming with avant-garde electronic pop and genre-defiant eclecticism, the duo expands on their bold new direction, still retaining their pop inclinations of their debut but refracting them through a more aggressively warped vision of the mainstream.

Hollingsworth explains that the single is “about communication. Some of the lyrics reference being in control as a woman in a romantic relationship, and being the one to initiate. It’s the importance of if you feel something, tell them. Because you don’t know what’s going to happen in life, you might as well just do it.” With their interweaving, heavily accented vocals, the duo musically adopt the sort of confident composure which they’re singing about, the track’s shape mutating several times throughout its runtime. Opening with a pastiche of cheesy 80’s synth-pop, the track moves through sections of spare atmospherics and big pop hooks underscored by buzzy, crunching synths on its way to a climax buoyed by house-inflected chords and a soaring, city-wide saxophone solo.

Like a Dahl novel, Let's Eat Grandma's twisted vision of the mainstream belies its own particular beauty and poeticism. With 'Hot Pink' and now with 'Falling into Me', the duo have given us two glimpses into this bold new vision and their ever-expanding universe of avant-garde electronic pop - I'm All Ears promises to push it even further.

WORDS BY KYLE FENSOM

IMAGE: Charlotte Patmore

LISTEN TO MORE NEW TRACKS HERE

SEE MORE:

'KERO KERO BONITO'S 'YOU KNOW HOW IT IS' WILL LEAVE YOU FEELING CONFUSED BUT CONTENT'

'SOPHIE QUESTIONS WHAT'S REAL IN NEW SINGLE, 'FACESHOPPING''