“Holy, Holy”

Steely Dan was firmly back in fashion years now, but no one has taken Donald Fagen's glass of kirschwasser and run with it as manically as Geordie Greep on his debut solo single. If black middies did a decent job of convincing math-rock obsessives to listen to children's music in the theater, “Holy, Holy” blows the mask off: Between one silky Broadway chord after another, Greep makes its revolution at the disco. “From the moment you put your hand on my knee/I knew I'd have you with ease,” he says with Pere Ubu's sneer, instantly announcing one of his most wretched and pathetic characters. Jazz chords and dance-punk guitars click in and out of time, just hitting their marks. it's like being approached by a cross-eyed lizard at the bar with its fly down, convinced it's absolutely killing it.

After a few minutes of bragging about his salsa moves, the twist comes into focus: Greep's latest conquest has an hourly price tag, and instead of taking her to Tokyo and Havana, he plans to stand in the bathroom with her for 15 minutes. , then have her brag to the other girls about what a stick she is. Compared to the splatter-paint canvases of his band's albums, “Holy, Holy” is delightfully sharp, carefully approximating what a black midi-pop song might actually sound like—it turns out that 4/4 really can be one of the most fascinating time signatures.