Pleasure Heads - Cosmopolis

By Jon Milton

Indie rockers from Falkirk, Pleasure Heads release a new single ‘Cosmopolis’ worth checking out today. The four-piece originally bonded over a love of 80s post punk and contemporary garage rock which you can hear on their earlier tracks like ‘Slurrin’, although Cosmopolis has a more commercial edge and is very much guitar driven pop with a big catchy chorus. 

Lyrically Cosmopolis deals with smartphone dependency, unconscious surveillance and modern-day despondency. A good reminder that for the sake of your mental health (particularly in current times) spending less time on social media is such a good thing to do. Vocalist and guitarist Euan Purves says of Cosmopolis:

“The idea for this song mainly comes from my disdain of technology. I'd admit that being able to see, in real time, events happening on the other side of the world is valuable in bringing humanity together; yet the personal connection is suffering as a result. It's easy to think of persons as disembodied voices, messages to be avoided, mere pixels on the screen. We too often can't see the brilliant, independent trees for the all-encompassing wood. Cosmopolis is a call for everyone to log off for once, see past the digital glitz, and broadcast their community spirit IRL.”

Of the artwork for Cosmopolis, a 1959 illustration titled ‘Traffic Of The Future’, painted by the late German retrofuturist artist Klaus Bürgle. Euan says
 
“We came across Klaus Bürgle and loved his work. Our favourite piece was ‘Traffic Of the Future’ and thought it might be worth getting in touch with the person who now holds the rights to the painting. Luckily he turned out to be a musician as well and was more than happy to let us use it as the cover.”
 
Interesting stuff, and the song itself is a bit of an ear worm. Find out for yourself here.