Sad Moves In The Dark: ELLEH’s “American Lover”

ELLEH is the new project from Bob (of Ice Cream Shout, Cloudy Busey and many more) and Satoru Teshima (fellow Japan-based blogger over at Lights And Music), and the unifying concept here is “sad boy disco.” The thrust of this thematic glue is the duo make music apt for those early morning hours (or late night ones, depending on perspective), when you are sleepy and maybe a bit wasted and probably dwelling on one too many romantic screw ups. But…you still want to try to dance it away, and the club is as inviting regardless of how much heartbreak is swimming around your head.

“American Lover” serves as a good intro to ELLEH’s driving creative force, a mid-tempo bouncer that finds Teshima ruminating over an old connection gone south, driving home the geographic edge of the song with a lot of references to “dollars” and “gold” (nothing says love in America like sweet, sweet capitalism), all delivered in a style that brings to mind Hotel Mexico. Pushing this forward is a persistent beat that keeps the song tethered to the dance floor…though, the little ripples and disruptions in the song hint at the heavy-eyelids of the protagonist. Listen above.