MP3 of the Week: ‘Green Groove’ by Free Choice Duo

Free Choice Duo groove like whiteys with this week’s MP3, aptly titled ‘Green Groove’. The simple repetition of the song will either have you nodding your head like you just got your Sega Mega Drive working again, or send you into a frustrated rage that only complete silence could relieve.

The drum-machine beats like an Afro-Cuban metronome while a 4-note melody descends so routinely it becomes almost meditative. But it’s the hypnotic patterns of the rhythm keyboard that bind the song together, working tirelessly to the beat like knitting needles, completely oblivious to the melody as it stretches out in spatial washes.

Not being much of an authority on the wide world of synth, I can’t really compare Free Choice Duo to much outside the incidental music from videos and game-cartridges I had in the late 80s and early 90s. I guess that’s why I like Free Choice Duo when I’d otherwise be fairly unreceptive to the genre.

The tonal qualities, the pre-programmed rhythms and the repetition of melodic themes sort of remind me of my childhood, playing Gameboy all week until the songs rooted in my brain and kept me up at night long after I’d run out of batteries. It’s the kind of music that at its best becomes so listenable you stop being able to really listen to it, and so repetitive you can never really turn it off.

Hear ‘Green Groove’ at: www.myspace.com/freechoicemusic/music/songs/green-groove-49539637

Free Choice Duo play Friday 23rd Sept at The Workers Club (51 Brunswick St, Fitzroy) with Wet Hair (US), Chrome Dome and Rites Wild (Adelaide).