Kevin Bronson on January 16th, 2013

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Motion CNTRL calls its music “incapacitated pop,” and there’s a kernel of truth in that. The stylish production, lovelorn girl/boy vocals and oozing melodies in the L.A. duo’s first three songs may induce binge-sipping (whatever you were using to wash down “Violator” in 1990, please) and serial hand-holding in the corners of clubs where everyone is wearing black. Not that the collaborators, singer-songwriter Allyce and singer-producer LHMV (Allyce Engelson and Luke Mertz if you check their IDs) are totally stuck in the 1980s –  there’s a sophisticated, almost post-romantic, edge to the duo’s harmonies and calls-and-responses, if not the robot beats. Motion CNTRL’s is synth-pop that seems to know all the outcomes, as you should by now. Brood if you must.

||| Download: “Departure”

||| Also: Download “Rolling Shallow” and “It Feels Right” from the duo’s website.