What do you get when you mix 70s disco, 80s funk, and advice seemingly from the 2050s? Partefact’s ‘Time Travel’, that’s what. ‘Time travel feels best the first time’, so sings their main refrain, and although only a small minority of our audience can relate (I’m looking at you, Area 51 readers), the rest of us can still have plenty of fun on the journey.
Partefacts – Time Travel
Partefacts is a band as eclectic as their sound, featuring Australian and Canadian artists who met in Berlin, with this release straight off their forthcoming EP.
‘Time Travel’ is a glitteringly smooth disco jam, with handfuls of funk and electro thrown in, plus some handy tips for your novice time-travellers.
Lyrics like ‘When do you live’ and ‘Keep your surprises’ are delivered with equal parts seriousness and silliness, with sing-songy melodies and tightly layered harmonies. That shimmying kick-shaker groove owes a lot to disco, but there’s also some intense funk bass and brass, and a dash of synth and vocoder straight from the 1980s. Somehow it all blends pleasingly. Truly, you cannot stop the funk.
The music video is aptly retrofuturistic too, done in the style of an 8-bit side-scroller video game, with nods to names such as Pacman and Street Fighter, yet the text telling us we’re in some year past 2070. It’s a blinding riot of neon colours and glitter, as we dodge laser-eyed deer, bananas, palm trees, and even catching a glimpse of the band in red jumpsuits. Even if I can’t quite label it, Partefacts are having a lot of fun, and so will their listeners.
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Words Eden Tredwell
