If Daft Punk’s 1997 hit, Around the World, left your head in a spin, Sexy Creep by
Ono Kimono is enough to leave you in a vortex of rhythmic vertigo. With deliciously
dark undertones running straight through the soul of the salacious single that carries
all the earworm potential of Thriller with echoes of Jackson’s other iconic hit,
Somebody’s Watching Me, Ono Kimono didn’t so much knock it out of the park with
Sexy Creep, but knocked it out of the cemetery. It’s good news for beat-driven goths
everywhere; Halloween has come early.
The psychedelic-pop project of Las Vegas musician Justin Roll pulls hazy guitars,
vintage drum sounds, warped tape textures and soulful grooves into era-less
nostalgia. Sexy Creep lets that forgotten-cassette atmosphere curl around trip-hop,
psychedelic rock colour and left-field R&B looseness.
The production has a sly, nocturnal strut, all bassline hypnosis and shadowy funk,
but the hook keeps the single firmly in earworm territory. Fans of Daft Punk, Gorillaz,
MGMT, Thundercat and spooky-season electronica should clock the appeal instantly
in the tongue-in-cheek seduction, wrapped in an almost ridiculous level of replay
value.
Sexy Creep is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify.
Review by Amelia Vandergast
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