Iraina Mancini – ‘Sugar High’ from ‘Undo The Blue’

The sound of what I might still glancingly refer to as Pop Music largely passed me by in 2023. In truth there has been an ever diminishing interest/awareness over the past few years and I admit that I am completely at ease with this. Occasionally I think I might write some extended piece about the reasons (something that hovers around the issues of Not Having Children and of reaching the point in life of being bewildered by/detached from What Young People Care About) but realise that the very fact my interest has dwindled means I am unlikely ever to find the motivation to do so. Besides, I am certain that there will be Opinion Pieces Aplenty that scour similar tracts of thought and since I am loathe to actually read any, why would I want to add to the dismal cacophony of elderly men confused by The Modern World?

All of which is by tortuous introduction to the Best Pop Record of 2023 (well, the best that I heard), a record that, for a few weeks at the end of summer found itself on repeat play. This in itself is a test of Great Pop. Does it make you obsessed for five minutes? Does it mean the world for the time it takes the sun to pass through the sky and then fade deliciously from view, leaving a memory burn that is peculiarly fiercer than reality? Does your heart break then mend then break again, ad infinitum? Or at least for the three minutes it takes for the song to play out. Does it simultaneously mean Everything and Nothing?

Iraina Mancini’s ‘Undo The Blue’ ticks all of these boxes and more. It is a record that effortlessly seems to both reference The Past whilst being resolutely Of The Moment (although, as perviously mentioned, I am hardly one to comment accurately on the ’Nowness’ of any bloody thing). I understand that listeners to The Radio 6 will likely have already been familiar with some of the singles from the album (‘Shotgun’, ‘Do It (You Stole The Rhythm’)’, Undo The Blue’) but for me it was like discovering an enchanting grotto filled with shiny new treats, and the delight at doing so was palpable. In the depths of December gloom it still sounds sensational: a glitter ball of tinsel and lights; a dusting of icing sugar on stollen bites. And from a top class selection box of sensational treats my favourite by the slimmest of margins is the appropriately titled ‘Sugar High’. Appropriately too there is a Saint Etienne remix of the song, which makes perfect sense because Mancini seems to share a similar infatuation with making something New from the same box of old reference points (60’s/70’s, French Pop, Psychedelia , Soul, Garage, Ye-Ye Girls). When I first heard it though I was immediately put in mind of when The Pipettes were sensationally seducing my world, which also says as much about my age as anything, I am sure. Younger readers (though I doubt that such a thing exists) will be able to drop more contemporary reference points. I, however, am too ignorant and lazy to even bother trying. Instead I shall just hit ‘repeat’ and let the sounds of someone else’s joyous release envelop me for a moment. Euphoria multiplied by weightlessness. Magic.