EP: Lightspeed Champion – Marlene

Lightspeed Champion MarleneLightspeed Champion, AKA Dev Hynes, is always giving. Not only has he given his fans an amazing debut album, but he’s also supplied various EPs, cover sessions and free demos through the years. In preparation for his second album, Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You, comes the EP, Marlene, featuring the forthcoming single and an array of extra songs.

‘Marlene’ is classic Lightspeed, reassuring long time fans that, while ‘Life is Sweet!’ may offer some change, it still has Dev’s trademark sweet awkwardness captured within it, with our hero singing “stop being cool” over and over.

While the single is another heart-warming Lightspeed Champion song, the rest of this EP is quite eclectic. ‘Concerto .2 “So Long! So Long!”’ is a beautiful instrumental arrangement that sounds like the soundtrack to a brilliant romance. Jane Berkin/ Serge Gainsbourg cover ‘69 Année Érotique’ moves the romance onto a more *ahem* lustful affair and shows, once again, that Dev is willing to cover anything, even a French, explicit song brimming with sexual tension. Throw in a Fleetwoods cover and another original Lightspeed song and you’ve got a brilliant piece of work. If this is anything to go by, Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You will be huge!

Words: Mike Rudge