The fresh and playful “Make Me Blue” stands out in Pierce Fulton’s current repertoire of in-your-face dance music, and puts him on the map for more alternative fans who still like to get down to a fun electronic groove. This new track is an alternating string of sparsely yet elegantly filled swathes of vast sonic space.
Bright and bouncy Hippo Campus-esque guitar riffs deliver a slightly gritty electric hook and pull the rest of the mix closer down-to-earth, settling the song into its slightly more alternative territory. The interplay of quirky industrial percussion and island-y steel drum synths combine in a fragmented and effervescent rhythm section. This predominant ensemble matches the weight of the guitar hook, but juxtaposes it with a more typical dance style and plush, vibrant timbres for subtle “trop-pop” flavor.
Interestingly, especially in the category of dance music, the bass is so delicately blended in with higher registers in the repeating groove that it’s almost non-present. In what might be thought of as a pre-chorus, the bass disappears entirely to clear a wide empty space for falsetto vocals echoed in octaves.
If Pierce Fulton sticks with this new, lighter style, fans of more nuanced EDM will have a artist to watch. If it doesn’t…it was fun while it lasted.