Words by Tim Hakki @TimHakki
Dessert’s latest song sees them taking a step back from the sonic theatrics of their singles so far to craft their slowest burner yet. ‘Checkmate’ calls to mind the visionary dystopian melancholy of Radiohead with a chorus about flight (‘run, just run’), and an ensemble of electronic sounds that intensify an overall feeling of poignant abject helplessness and beauty. There is some light autotune applied very tastefully which helps the song resonate with the here and now. It’s still early days but Dessert are a thrillingly conscious band of cultural magpies. If MGMT are the formalist pop guys then Dessert are the post-structuralists and avant-gardists, dialling down the immediacy of their hooks and rolling up the feeling.