Hot New Joint: "Repeat Pleasure" by How to Dress Well
By the time I got to work on Thursday, and after I had begun
the process of “settling in” for the morning—which means checking all of my
favorite time wasting websites before doing any real work—I noticed the top
headline on Pitchfork was an incredibly important one: that Tom Krell, AKA How
to Dress Well, had announced a new album (What is This Heart?) due out
June 24th, and also shared a new single from the LP as well—“Repeat
Pleasure.”
Needless to say, you can imagine how #blessed I was feeling.
“Repeat Pleasure” continues the trajectory into just
straight up R&B bliss that we heard on Krell’s other most recent single,
“Words I Don’t Remember.” While he’s never made an attempt to hide his Janet
Jackson influences, specifically with the New Jack stylings on 2012’s “& It
Was U” (and that whole cover he did of “Again”) “Repeat Pleasure” calls to mind
Jackson’s 2001 single “Someone to Call My Lover,” right down to the acoustic
guitar noodlings.
Is Tom Krell in love?
That’s what a friend of mine asked me on Facebook after I
had shared the article about the new album and new single. It’s a question
worth asking—both of Krell’s new songs have been exponentially more optimistic
and hopeful sounding when compared to the claustrophobic lo-fi beginnings of
his career in 2010, and the general heartbreak surrounding 2012’s Total
Loss. While “Words I Don’t Remember” captured the uncertainty and struggles
of a modern romance, built around a slightly reserved and melancholic, though
rather triumphant sound, “Repeat Pleasure” is, without a doubt, a love song.
With its swirling keyboard notes and a searing guitar solo
early on (not even joking) “Repeat Pleasure” clips along at a very swift
pace—undeniably danceable, giving off Haim-esq levels of, dare I say it,
fun? Yes. Fun. This is an incredibly fun song that you can’t help but feel good
when listening to. Which is weird for me to say about a How to Dress Well song,
given how many times Tom Krell’s music has left me a devastated, sobbing mess.
I don't remember where I read it exactly, or if I'm even
referencing it the right way, but I feel like very early on in Krell's career
as HTDW, listening to his debut release, Love Remains, was
described as being akin to a growing up in the 90s with an older sister,
hearing “MTV Jams” or Top 40 Radio coming through the wall, muffled and
distorted. Four years down the line, Krell's no longer in the next room over.
It's always been apparent that he is an amazing singer, and he's definitely
grown more confident in his abilities as a performer. The energy on both new
songs, specifically the very positive, upbeat energy on "Repeat Pleasure"
is astounding and refreshing to hear.
“I sing clear. I sing loud.
It feels important to me, like really a next step,” Krell says in the press
release that accompanies What is This
Heart?, an album that, from the sounds of it, promises to be a diverse set—pulling
from Krell’s eclectic range of influences. The design and packaging for the
record also seems to be his largest undertaking yet—with a special edition
double LP, complete with an additional 10” record, and a 28 page booklet, all
housed in a PVC slipcase.
In the last four years, there are many artists who have
hopped on the “deconstructed” or “abstracted” R&B bandwagon, but nobody
does it better than How to Dress Well. And by slowly peeling away those abstractions,
Krell is revealing himself to be an innovative modern day R&B singer, with
no descriptors necessary.
Which is good, because have you ever tried to explain Krell’s
to somebody who has never heard before?
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