Guide
Twenty years after Making Dens, Blaine Harrison and his band Mystery Jets have dropped off “Flea Joint”, one half of a double single released alongside “Anaglypta” and a preview of their new record “A Hole To See The Sky Through”. It arrives with a new rhythm section, twins Ollie and Eddie Taylor stepping in on guitar and bass after the exits of William Rees and Jack Flanagan, and it sounds like a band figuring out who they are again rather than coasting on old habits.
The Groove
I am impressed with how the song refuses to sit still while somehow never rushing anywhere. Harrison has said the band built it from loops they kept looping over hot summer nights, chasing something that felt more like Fela Kuti or Can than a typical indie rock verse chorus structure. You can hear that logic in the riff which keeps turning over on itself, patient, almost hypnotic, less concerned with a big chorus payoff than with keeping you locked into its pulse.
Producer Leo Abrahams, who has spent years working alongside Brian Eno and shaping records for Wild Beasts and Frightened Rabbit, seems to be behind a lot of the texture here. His usual trick is making a single guitar line do the work of several instruments, layering and treating it until it stops sounding like a guitar at all. That fingerprint is all over this track if you look out for it. What you assume are keyboards or synth pads might just be six strings pushed through the right chain.
The Manchester Thread
Harrison has also mentioned an 80s Manchester influence creeping into the riff, and once you know that, you can’t unhear it. There’s a looseness to the groove, a kind of baggy swagger that recalls that whole lineage of British bands who learned to make guitar music move like dance music. It never fully tips into pastiche though. It just colors the edges.
The Voice
Harrison’s vocal has always been on the softer, higher side, and it works pretty well against a track built on repetition and momentum rather than volume. He doesn’t try to out muscle the arrangement. He floats over it, letting the groove carry most of the weight while his melody threads through the gaps. It suits the song’s mood, which feels more like a slow unfolding.
Where It Sits
Paired with “Anaglypta”, a bigger and more widescreen sounding song about feeling trapped at home, “Flea Joint” plays the role of the looser, more rhythmic cousin. Together they suggest a band stretching in two directions at once rather than repeating themselves. Coming from a group whose sound has shifted a lot over the years, from the psych tinged strangeness of their debut to the sleeker pop of their middle period, this new single feels like another genuine turn rather than a retread.
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