The opening of the Free Moral Agents’ new single “North Is Red” is deceptive, to say the least. The first moments have a decidedly exotic feel—a swoop-and-hit beat with a simple guitar hum. At first it suggests a noise to come—difficult to listen to but rewarding to deconstruct. And I guess that’s half-right, because it was very rewarding—just not as difficult as I’d imagined. Suddenly, horns fly in and a drum kit pulls it all neatly together. This is now something between Jefferson Airplane and traditional calypso. It has an undeniable (nay, unstoppable) swagger that presses it on—the sort of urgency you might hear in a Tarantino film as the bad guys walk into the sunset. Then it jumps into a raging sax-and-drum breakdown that satisfyingly pulls the song to a close. Also included is a remix by Afrobeat drum sultan Tony Allen, who manages to turn a psych-y tune into a more dreamy and surreal affair. The remix works as an amazing cooldown period from the aggressivismo of the sax solo, all the while proving why Tony Allen has gotten as far as he has. FMA has considerable guts to hand their material over to someone who could very conceivably outdo them at every turn. Still, I can’t help but hope they do it again.
—Matt Dupree