As one continues to wait for that inevitable dance album of the summer, CHVRCHES’ Love Is Dead, the best and only thing to tide one over is Sofi Tukker’s mid-April release, Treehouse. Though many of the singles from the album have already long ago shot the duo into the thermosphere of dance acts to be reckoned with, including “Fuck They,” “Batshit,” “Baby I’m A Queen” and “Best Friend,” when listened to in one tantalizing shot, it makes a girl yearn for a summer spent tooling around Grecian waters in a yacht while languidly sipping from a cocktail (remember when people still drank those before suddenly glomming onto this unshakeable health kick?).
From the opening “Fuck They,” Sofi Tukker–which, in case you didn’t know, combines the names of the group’s members, Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern–declares war on any proverbial institution that has somehow gotten it into their heads that “they” have the power. “They” say this, ergo we all have to obey. Na na. Sofi Tukker don’t play that game. Instead, they play their own, even “deigning,” somewhat hypocritically, to have their first single, “Drinkee,” from the EP, Soft Animals, that would legitimize them as a “real band,” featured in an Apple watch commercial. It would be the first of many “synergistic” Apple collaborations, with another lead track from Treehouse, “Best Friend,” premiering in the reveal commercial for the iPhone X–which doesn’t really jibe considering how difficult it is to love any piece of tech “way past sixty-five.” But one can’t begrudge Sofi Tukker for their Apple intertwinement. After all, there was once upon a time when it was actually cool to be in an Apple commercial, like around the era when M.I.A. and Gorillaz were being played in those now retro “silhouette” ads for iPods (shit, even Bob Dylan conceded to appearing in one). But back to Treehouse. While Sofi Tukker might lightly rage, “I don’t give a fuck about they (who’s they?), who gives a fuck about they (who’s they?),” they know at heart that allying with “they” is the only way to get ahead. Which is precisely part of the reason why they were able to create the innovative dance album they wanted to, dripping with beats and cultural tinges that would never make one guess that they’re based out of New York.
The second track, “Energia,” for example, is sung entirely in Portuguese by Hawley-Weld, the frenetic–energetic–bossa nova-tinged, jungle-saturated club beats punctuated as Hawley-Weld chants, “Da-da-da da minha energia, da-da minha energia/Era uma vez o sol e a lua/Se refletindo no céu e no mar/A velha terra entrou numa fria/Falta a energia, desligaram o ar.” Translation? “Give it my energy, give it my energy/Gimme gimme my energy, gimme gimme my energy/Reflected itself in the sky and on the sea/The old earth got into a cold/Out of energy, the air turned off.” It is better in Portuguese, isn’t it?
From there, things slow down on one of the most poignant, lyrically memorable songs of Treehouse, “Benadryl.” Both sadly and acceptingly, Hawley-Weld admits, “I lost my sanity with my socks, one at a time, I barely noticed, till one day I found they all were gone/I couldn’t find them, and I couldn’t focus.” Likely speaking of the memory of someone still “inked” in her mind like the hand tattoo of another she also refers to, Hawley-Weld knows all too well that, “We gotta put his to bed, ’cause I got some things to do.” And, as you all know, things certainly can’t get done with certain unshakeable thoughts on one’s mind. This theme of restlessness (and the associated need for a calming medication to quell it) is also present on track seven, “My Body Hurts” (which, yes, it probably will after too much time spent dancing to this album). Starting out slowly and softly, Sophie explains, “I woke up late, my dreams were loud/They settled down into the kitchen, then I win ’em back to bed/I tried to rest, the dreams came back/I couldn’t learn all of the lessons that I knew I could’ve had/And once I started, started to think/I got tossed inside a tumbleweed, a many-headed thing/So I’m here on the other side/Feeling fucked up and bridled inside my own mind.” This gentle buildup leads to the Bjork-esque in “It’s Oh So Quiet” shout, “My body hurts/I’m overwhelmed/I complain because I want to and it feels so good to yell!” Before this brief, rage-oriented interlude, however, there is the calming and ambient “Johny” (yet another song Sofi Tukker finagled into a commercial…for FIFA). Adapted from the 1983 poem by Paulo Leminski that appears in the book Caprichos e Relaxos, one gets the sense that Johny is the same type of boy the Shangri-Las were singing about in “Leader of the Pack” (who knows, maybe it’s even a summoning spell for the same one). But then, maybe Johny would feel more inclined to call if Sophie wasn’t such a “Good Time Girl.” Featuring Charlie Barker on the track, the subdued tone present at the outset of “My Body Hurts” remains throughout “Good Time Girl,” contrastingly uptempo to Sophie’s restrained vocals (in opposition to Barker’s) as she offers, “You can call me the good time girl,” after giving the following rundown of her current psyche: “And here I am playing by myself/Me and my superiority complex/And here I am playing by myself/Me and my inferiority contest/I’m not winning, but I’m having a very good time.” This sentiment is, in truth, what forms the entire crux of the record. “Having a very good time” while being latently miserable beneath it all. In this way, there’s no denying Sofi Tukker’s NYC origins.
Indeed, for a dance album, Treehouse is far more prone to examining the psychological than most others (save for, as usual, anything released by the Pet Shop Boys). But this exploration is always done with gleeful tongue-in-cheekness, most notably on “Batshit,” the only song in which Halpern’s vocals are prominent as he asserts, “I’m batshit crazy!” Yes, who isn’t or wouldn’t be from too much time spent in NYC, or on this earth at all for that matter?
The creeping strings of “The Dare” are in keeping with the slow, yarn-spinning lilt Sophie likes to use for her Portuguese as she narrates, “Entre a coisa e o nome, a coisa/Entre o vinho e a taça, o vinho/Entre a boca e o batom, a boca/Entre a mão e a luva, a mão.” Again, translation: “Between the thing and the name, the thing/Between the wine and the glass, the wine/Between the mouth and the lipstick, the mouth/Between the hand and the glove, the hand.” Her sultry tone persists as she seems to be retelling a tale that combines both woe and delight while cautioning, “Stare into anyone’s eyes for long enough, you might fall in love.” A temptation always best left resisted. And then, out of nowhere, as though to mimic the unexpected process of falling in love itself, the smooth, fanciful guitar strings gently lead us into the coda.
Closing out with that club banger that evermore proves how platonic relationships are the only thing that can stand the test of time, “Best Friend” is the perfect way to wrap up this amuse bouche for the dance vibe that goes hand in hand with the summer.
