Never underestimate the power of a good ba-bap ba-bap baa in turining a forgettable track into the most viciously catchy piece of songwriting. Well used, it can leave listeners with a pop in their step days, even weeks after they listened to the song in question. Vaguely RnB, vaguely synthpop dance music producer David Harks knows this, and has created a very odd, very British take on the average electro-scape. 
The second of four summer releases from Brighton’s David Harks… ahem, harks back to the best of British music with an electronic sheen.
Hailing from Brighton (as close to a beach town as it gets in the UK), the producer and multi-instrumentalist has just dropped Illusion, a thoroughly modern take on a variety of British invasions. Opening with an electronic take on a drumbeat that makes you want to want to click your fingers, exhale and do your best Rod Argent impression – and even though Harks is firmly in the world of electronica, the majority of Illusion ain’t too far off that early 60’s pop sound.
Slipping into something even more comfortable, the song dons a shuffled out breakbeat and some breathy brit-pop vocals, much more akin to the calmer moments of Jarvis Cocker or Elastica’s Justine Frischmann before we get hit with those ba bap ba bap baa’s. The song’s subdued synth tones, hints of background instrumentals, whooshing white noise and indistinct backing vocals craft a complex choir indeed.
Strangely enough, the aforementioned complexity and the breakbeat throughout ends up giving the song a real Manchester vibe, twisting the listener’s melon (man) and letting loose a primal scream that can’t help but be adored. Essentially, David Harks has summised every one of the British invasions, cutting out the NME pop of 2004 and that whole miserable post-punk period around the 80’s.
So if you’re a music teacher and need to teach these dubstep/vaporwave listening kids about what British music sounds like, this might be a good way to subtly slip it in their curriculum. Also if you’re a music teacher, I’d like to thoroughly apologise on behalf of… every High School music student ever for playing Smells Like Teen Spirit so many times, and still managing to fuck it up.
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