The mighty Phoenix. Masters of effortlessly knowing their way around the crafting of outstanding, loveable indie pop tunes and always, always there, toiling away reliably, brilliantly, in the background. We do love Phoenix so very, very much. And so, it would seem, do some of the biggest and best names in indie rock. Very recently, on latest album ‘Alpha Zulu’, single ‘Tonight’ featured a guest spot from Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend and now, before putting the LP to rest, indie prodigy Clairo has jumped on one of the record’s highlights ‘After Midnight’, with laudable results.
Acting as a duet between the french masters’s frontman Thomas Mars and the Atlanta, Georgia, songstress, the structure of the track remains essentially the same as last year’s original version, the synths remain as sprightly, the melody stays as playful, the lyrics make some allusion to the night time but ultimately seem to be about a brilliant nothing, but Clairo’s new vocals are addition enough to elevate the song up from ‘Alpha Zulu’s magnificent mass and get it some well deserved attention and airtime of it’s own.
‘Alpha Zulu’, the seventh studio album from Phoenix, was released at the end of last year on 4th November 2022. ‘After Midnight’, however, was released just a few days ago on 16th March 2023. You can hear it on all of the streaming services wherever you normally listen to music or, while you’re here, you can have a watch of the lyric video on YouTube below: