NADINE – Ultra Pink

“My body is filled with melodies and sonic textures, incubating & looping”, says Nadia Hulett, part of the loose collective Phantom Posse and vocalist of Minneapolis trio NADINE. Well, that’s not entirely surprising. Her father was a club singer, both of her parents loved soul music and her mother can recall her asking if she can spell out the words of lyrics she was crafting as a child. Perhaps its little surprise then that there’s a sense of transformative playfulness to ‘Ultra Pink’, the band’s first single from their debut album ‘oh my’.

According to Nadia, ‘Ultra Pink’ is about “knowing you can do something before you do it”, but if you’re able to second-guess where it’ll twist and turn in its sub-three-minute span then you might well be psychic. It kicks off with vaguely retro bleeps before giving way to Nadia’s smooth, warm vocals – pretty much the only thread that runs through ‘Ultra Pink’. From there it turns into a groove-laden slice of alt-pop, but by its climax it bursts back into a euphoric flurry of vintage, squalling synths. It doesn’t sound as if it should all hold together and yet Nadia and her bandmates make it all seem like the most natural of combinations. Clearly they knew they could do it before they actually did it.