IF YOUR particular thing is international pop then you may have come across the Danish popster MØ, who hit no.1 on the UK charts in collaboration with Major Lazer and Justin Bieber with “Cold Water”, and no.2 as guest vocalist again with Major Lazer’s “Lean On”; and let’s just change our lenses here a sec and focus in on her band, and particularly Rasmus Littauer, her drummer of the past decade – he’s spreading his wings with a different, more underground stripe of pop melodicism as School of X.
Following last year’s debut album proper, Armlock, on Tambourhinoceros, Rasmus has announced his second album with a single drop, “Fade Away”, embedded down at the bottom there.
School of X has been making FM alt.rock waves since his 2017 debut EP under that alias in his native Denmark. As with so many other artists, the ‘rona put paid to an appearance at SXSW and a gig in London – his debut album even appeared during lockdown, which is poor luck; so, in the enforced downtime, he wrote another record.
“Away” is a quirky alt.pop anthem, at once reminiscent of dEUS circa The Ideal Crash and also unafraid to let some yacht rock-style atmospheres trip with that curling sax – and explores the immediate aftermath of a breakup and the process of coming to terms with loss.
Rasmus says: “To me, this is a beautiful love song with a very melancholic twist.
“It’s on one hand describing the love that was there, and on the other hand, the love is gone and how hard it is to miss who used to be your best friend.
“Suddenly this one person is not part of your life anymore, going from being everything to nothing. It’s about realizing that and dealing with it as well as you can.”
School of X’s Dancing Through The Void will be released by Tambourhinoceros on September 24th.
Connect with School of X on Facebook, Twitter, at his website, on Apple Music and Instagram.
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