Review: Little Dragon – ‘Nabuma Rubberband’

Review: Little Dragon – ‘Nabuma Rubberband’

You may think that Little Dragon’s album cover for ‘Nabuma Rubberband’ is cute. I think it’s eerie, and the music reinforces that feeling.

Obviously, Little Dragon have never been a funny pop band. Remember, they’re responsible for bringing you a song called ‘Blinking Pigs’, and there was nothing mildly amusing about it.
‘Nabuma Rubberband’ is their first album in three years, and while it continues the unique brand of indie synthpop they are known for, it does come with a few twists.

Album opener ‘Mirror’ starts off slowly with hypnotic beats and two simple keyboard notes. Before you know it, the drums kick in and you’ll find yourself bobbing your head and tapping your feet in rhythm.
You have probably already heard ‘Klapp Klapp’: it’s prime upbeat Little Dragon, somewhere between jazz and electronica. The chorus is as addictive as it gets, and Yukimi Nagano’s voice is gripping.

Talking about the album, Nagano admitted the influence of Janet Jackson’s “slow stuff”. ‘Nabuma Rubberband’ is indeed mostly made up of slow-burning songs, but it also sounds very bleak and cold. On ‘Cat Rider’, the music has an industrial feel to it and the menacing strings in the background only augment its sombre texture.

“Oh my God, it’s green the fire, go!”, says an exasperated French car driver in the introduction to ‘Paris’. It is one of the very few light moments in the album. The song itself is one of Little Dragon’s most overtly Prince-inspired numbers.

The title track, however, starts off suggesting Yukimi and co. have gone amok, and turned to techno music. It is a frightening thought to have halfway through an album. Luckily for us, it soon turns into one of the most lavishly produced songs on the record, complete with strings.

For all its bleakness, ‘Nabuma Rubberband’ is also an album that exudes the kind of confidence you’d expect from a band that have mastered their sound so early on in their career. And while the juxtaposition of different moods and styles feels weird at times, I wouldn’t want it any other way. In fact, the last thing I’d want from Little Dragon would be for them to be predictable and normal. And between you and me, that’s nothing to worry about.

Brice Detruche