Car Seat Headrest Wants to Channel Frank Ocean on "Cute Thing"

A couple of weeks ago we shared news that Will Toledo – AKA Car Seat Headrest – has re-made his 2011 Bandcamp album Twin Fantasy. Now new music from that record, due out 16 February via Matador, is coming quickly: at midnight last night, he released another track, the reworked "Cute Thing."

Renewed for Twin Fantasy 2.0, "Cute Thing" is still a song of artistic longing seemingly fuelled by a want to be desired, though Toledo's references are wider-ranging this time. He trades his prayer for the voice of Destroyer's Dan Bejar, and the "stage presence" of John Entwistle from The Who for one which begs the qualities of Frank Ocean and James Brown. Even this is a bit of a marker for how the musical scope of Car Seat Headrest has changed since Twin Fantasy's original inception.

As for the sound Toledo achieves, you'd be hard pushed not to spot Nirvana all over the chorus (kind of in the same way he summoned the glam of The Killers for the last new track, "Nervous Young Inhumans"). But his signature mumble remains on the verses, which paint a vivid portrait of fundamental creative anxiety and a type of uncertain lust that's somehow bred by it. Listen above. Then think about whose voice you'd want if, just for a moment, you could have anyone else's.

Car Seat Headrest plays a string of European dates, including Primavera Sound festival (tickets here), throughout May and June.

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