Richard Jahn has a large personality and innovative songwriting craft that is tailor made for entertainment. His new track ‘Private Members Club’ is an absolute delight – Jahn’s voice is sonorous and profound, his lyrics have a wry cynicism and the instrumentation is sensuous and seductive. It is intelligent music to dance to: dance music with something to say, and above all has an indelible sense of presence and style. Jahn says:
I suppose I have a penchant for modern crooneristic tendencies and I want to reflect, and discuss, the strange times we are living in – that’s really my goal with songwriting.
There is an electro-bop spine that is infective, a sparse, spatial guitar that moves in and out while Jahn repeats the line money can’t buy what you want to afford. The song explodes into a frenetic horn-driven orgy that is euphoric and anthemic.
The video, directed by Charlie Rose, is a cinematic masterpiece – Jahn’s mesmerising movements seem infused with excess and hedonism, exploding into sudden violence and strange, sinuous movements from which you can’t tear your eyes away. His performance seems to be a personification of the greedy, self-absorbed society he sings about, and the result has the lustre and subtle malevolence of a Michael Mann/Nicolas Winding Refn movie. A coordinated, prowling dancing manoeuvre in an anodyne beige suit and COVID length isolation hair never looked so enthralling.
You can download/stream the single here:
Spotify | Youtube | Soundcloud | Other links
Jahn is a character worthy of the eccentricity of the song and video – he is apparently the son of a one-armed Guinness world record holding water skier, the grandson of a 1940s inventor and currently lives on a farm with 100 life-sized elephant sculptures. Whatever the genetic input, the results are a fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable ride.
