The One That You Want

The Far East “NYC Dream”

The Far East’s music is a remarkable fascismile of 1970s and early 1980s Jamaican music, to the point that if you can filter out textural and tonal nuances that mark it as contemporary recordings, you could be convinced it’s the real deal. This band appears to be entirely comprised of white Americans, and I suppose you can make that a case for being problematic, but I think that is more of an issue if they sucked at this and their approximation was purely a cringey surface-level thing. A song like “NYC Dream” comes from love and admiration, and more importantly, a collective skill set capable of producing such a warm and generous melody and playing the rhythm with just the right feel. It helps that “NYC Dream” is grounded in the band’s own setting too, so it’s just as connected to Blondie’s version of rocksteady as the authentic Jamaican source material as Maddie Ruthless sings a romantic love song that’s simultaneously for her partner and the city around them.

Buy it from Bandcamp.