DAT Politics ~ Go Pets Go
Sung in falsetto
voices, twice:
“Go pets go
We all would like to know
Where all these pets can go
Maybe we should follow”
The verse is then chopped and diced, all the while treading a line just the right side of delirious. The result is not a million miles distant from 80s toytown, videorama pop. And, ultimately, the track prompts the listener to ask the question ‘why can’t pets go?’ Who knew. The indecipherable lyric to This Way appears to be sung by Pinky and Perky and is borne along on a stomping rhythm garnished with what sounds like a children’s plastic guitar.
Cat Polk edges closer to DAT Politics’ musical ancestors, Yellow Magic Orchestra by sounding like an update of that group’s debut. The preceding track Si folds in a group interview which recalls YMO’s uncomfortable skit about Japanese stereotypes x00 Multiplies. Micro Rainbow has the kitsch knob turned up to 11, in fact the knob appears to have broken off, allowing the kitsch to flow unstemmed.
Go Pets Go is as flippant as it is serious. It’s alive with amused, unselfconscious laughter, chatter and gleeful silliness. It’s bright, garish, plastic and disposable. It’s fun, playful and strangely determined to see things through to their very end. Go Pets Go might have been composed on the fly in a karaoke bar in Shibuya (check out Yha Hoo Tuning if you don’t believe this assertion). Whatever its provenance, if you own a Sony Aibo, have ever nursed and fed a Tamagotchi through good times or bad, or wrestled happily with manga demons in your dreams (and always won) then DAT Politics’ latest may well be for you.
Sung in a summery, carefree way:
“Flowers, I am
looking lovely flowers, I am
looking for food, I am
No time for love
Work for peanuts
Bees are bees
Trees are trees”
Is it possible to argue with such seemingly guileless sentiments?
“Go pets go
We all would like to know
Where all these pets can go
Maybe we should follow”
The verse is then chopped and diced, all the while treading a line just the right side of delirious. The result is not a million miles distant from 80s toytown, videorama pop. And, ultimately, the track prompts the listener to ask the question ‘why can’t pets go?’ Who knew. The indecipherable lyric to This Way appears to be sung by Pinky and Perky and is borne along on a stomping rhythm garnished with what sounds like a children’s plastic guitar.
Cat Polk edges closer to DAT Politics’ musical ancestors, Yellow Magic Orchestra by sounding like an update of that group’s debut. The preceding track Si folds in a group interview which recalls YMO’s uncomfortable skit about Japanese stereotypes x00 Multiplies. Micro Rainbow has the kitsch knob turned up to 11, in fact the knob appears to have broken off, allowing the kitsch to flow unstemmed.
Go Pets Go is as flippant as it is serious. It’s alive with amused, unselfconscious laughter, chatter and gleeful silliness. It’s bright, garish, plastic and disposable. It’s fun, playful and strangely determined to see things through to their very end. Go Pets Go might have been composed on the fly in a karaoke bar in Shibuya (check out Yha Hoo Tuning if you don’t believe this assertion). Whatever its provenance, if you own a Sony Aibo, have ever nursed and fed a Tamagotchi through good times or bad, or wrestled happily with manga demons in your dreams (and always won) then DAT Politics’ latest may well be for you.
Sung in a summery, carefree way:
“Flowers, I am
looking lovely flowers, I am
looking for food, I am
No time for love
Work for peanuts
Bees are bees
Trees are trees”
Is it possible to argue with such seemingly guileless sentiments?
Colin Buttimer
July 2004
Published by Milkfactory