Collaborating with German DJ/producer Alle Farben. featuring his Graham Candy‘s quirky, gender-bending high range vocals on She Moves earned him a gold record single and a solid signing to major players BMG Rights Management and Berlin’s Crazy Planet Records. ‘Holding Up Balloons’ is the first fruit of that new relationship.

If you didn’t know it was Candy singing then you’d swear it was a female vocalist behind these sultry, attitude-laced numbers. The title track swings along bright, chirpy, with a slight nod to Euro-pop, the happiest break up song I’ve heard all year. To Kiwis, a rant is full-on stream of consciousness diatribe of bile, but given the Kraut-pop treatment the lyrics somehow become sweeter and more accepting. The most narcotic elements are saved for track three, Addictive Personality, which crawls like a Massive Attack number before stretching itself up to its full bombastic height, like a Shirley Bassey Bond theme at the end of the credits. Clearly, you’ll keep coming back for more. Don’t You Worry is another stab at ’60s lounge reinvented for the techno age, albeit it a little more delicate. This is very much a taster of more quirk to come, and guessing what that will be is open to delightful speculation.