ARCADE FIRE FEAT DAVID BOWIE REFLEKTOR

So much hyped up conjecture surrounding this song. It is an Arcade Fire mythos. Yes, we can go through the exciting tales of the is-this-or-is-this-not-the-artwork collection, or better yet, we can regale you with the Legend of The Leak - in which this song is leaked online to a chorus of frantically typing keyboards glazed with excited sweat - or the Ballad of James Murphy, in which saves the world hourly with indie-tinged disco production; hey, and what about that thing with David Bowie possibly singing on this track? That's the ghost story part. Sometimes, late at night, you can hear Bowie's spacey vocals caressing the very air itself: "Just a reflection, of a reflection, of a reflection, of a reflection". Spooky stuff innit. Worthy of rumour.

So anyway, to be fair, if indeed Bowie does feature on this song, called 'Reflektor', that's pretty cool. I like that. There's also a girl singing in French at some points - and I like French, too. But what first struck me about this song wasn't all these additional niceties, nor the fact that Arcade Fire are proverbially "back"; no, it was merely a case of that old-fashioned thing of a song just sounding good. I guess though, in a way, that has something to do with the fact that Mr LCD Soundsystem, J. Murphy himself is producing the upcoming Arcade Fire album, also titled Reflektor. Maybe that's why it sounds so nice. At the very start, when everything is stripped back, and all you can hear are the disco-infused beats, the feet-possessing bongo taps and lead-me-to-the-dancefloor octave-skipping bass, it could be an LCD song. Do you not think?

It oozes a glam kinda menacing funk disco flavour, old-school strings gracing the track every now and again. Guitar chords whisper in and out aiding the progressive nature of the song, a brass section helping to give it the glitz of multi-coloured flashing dancefloors and roller-discos and stuff like that. The beat gets busier with the hi-hat getting more fidgety, and the true nature of emotional disco comes to light with tense-moment strings and dramatic piano chord progressions. It slowly becomes quite an epic song.

Let's just say it's down to all elements involved. We can't say it's all down to Mr Murphy - that would just be unfair. However, I suppose you can say that he might've pinned down the disco sound. Who can say? Who knows. Anyone can progenerate conjecture till the cows come home, you know what I mean? Let's just say: it's a good song. Let's leave it at that and wait till the album is on its way out. Till then, I will not be keeping up with the gossip, I'm afraid. It was supposed to be out tomorrow but now everyone's heard it. C'est ça.

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