Hints

Chinah

No3, 2017

http://www.facebook.com/chinahmusic

REVIEW BY: Vish Iyer

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 09/09/2017

Copenhagen, Denmark’s Chinah mixes ‘80s soul with modern electronica, and the result is beautiful. There is nothing utterly unique about the kind of music this trio (consisting of singer and songwriter Fine Glindvad, guitarist Simon Kjær, and electronic musician and pianist Simon Andersson) makes. But the band’s superb songwriting and musicianship make their songs anything but ordinary.

Chinah doesn’t have any albums under their belt yet. Hints is their second EP, following their 2016 debut EP Once The Lights Are On. Their music, consisting of sparse beats, spacey synthesizers, guitars, and Glindvad’s jaunty but haunting vocals, is a winning combination, for it is utterly and deliciously catchy. Although this is true with both the band’s EPs, my_heart_sings_the_harmony_web_ad_alt_250 Hints shows more maturity and is for sure the better of the two.

It is amazing how incredibly infectious this release is without being flashy at all. For instance, there is only one truly fast song here: the beat-driven concluding track “Even Love.” “If I Stay” is a slow number with no beats at all, featuring ambient synthesizers and a tense pulsating rhythm; still, it is impossible to resist tapping your feet to it.

The haunting “Young” represents the delicate side of Hints, with Glindvad’s delightfully vulnerable voice and dreamy synthesizers that are sweet but somber at the same time. “All Your Words” and “Can’t Remember How It Feels” are more upbeat ear candies of the good kind that you would want to hear again and again.

It is impossible to find any weakness here. True, this is only a seven-song EP. Still, even the short instrumentals, which are ultimately fillers, don’t seem all that bad. The opening track, the two-minute long semi-instrumental “The Space Another Made” introduces the album in grand style with its siren-like synthesizers and thumping beats.

The second instrumental, the minute-long “Can’t Remember How It Feels (Interlude),” is a snippet of the core melody of “Can’t Remember How It Feels.” This interlude is a pretty cool lead-in to the song (instead of being one minute of just wasted space); except that the band, strangely enough, has arranged it so it comes after the song. The order of tracks certainly does not make the interlude as effective as it could have been. But if this is the only gripe about the EP, then this really is small beer.

Chinah’s tiny little EP is addictive as hell. Hopefully the band’s full-length debut – whenever they make one – is equally as exciting.

Rating: A-

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