new music: retro-future debut from atlanta-based art collective all cows eat grass #soundcheck

With synth laden melodies, Afrobeat grooves, and electrofunk squiggles, art collective All Cows Eat Grass makes head expanding future pop. The Atlanta / NYC / Bay Area / LA / Memphis based collective marries a diverse array of influences, but what could easily sound disjointed is held together seamlessly by a unique sense of purpose. Their latest, The Kool Collection is a lush body-moving daydream.

Words by Nathan Leigh, AFROPUNK Contributor

Opener “We All Win” rides a driving four-to-the-floor beat, but colors in the margins in with percussion hits and analog synth lines. It’s an immaculate attention to detail that makes the best synth pop. On “M.I.L.K.” the band’s retro-future dance party find it’s perfect distillation. “You ain’t even gotta be Paula Abdul / All you really gotta do is make it look kool” they sing over a track that deconstructs the intersection of early Depeche Mode, George Clinton, Chromeo, and Fela.

“Kool As Hail” is a track straight out of the late 70’s in the best possible way. With a bassline that in an alternate timeline would have been sampled to death in the early years of hip-hop, the track is chill, triumphant, propulsive, and magnetic. In short: it’s kool as hell. The magic of All Cows Eat Grass is their ability to keep their spaced out retro grooves feeling dynamic. They play a lot with space and ambiance but never let it get subsumed by their real mission: to make you move. The record closes out with “This Time,” a song that works as well on the dance floor as it does in the haze of the morning after. “This time we gonna party all night long / Don’t bring nothing home / Just leave it on the dancefloor.”