What We're Listening To: Mobley

To paraphrase Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – which means sublimating at the office slippers of screenwriter and literary outlaw William Goldman (The Princess Bride) – Mobley's got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals. Branded by the author as "a sci-fi concept record about [...] a dissident in an alternate past Eighties NYC," Cry Havoc! transmits a full narrative in the blink of an eye. Templated same as last year's equally immersive EP Young & Dying in the Occident Supreme, starring BLM pandemic anthem "James Crow," seven songs in 19 minutes flesh out on vinyl with versions (instrumentals) of the same tracklist on the flipside, Xeroxing a precious page from reggae toasters and hip-hop DJs. Digital soul-pop slick and sure, analog at heart but numeric in precision and pulse, Cry Havoc! beats and blips and bursts like a dissident Prince. Chill-bump single "Stay Volk" déjà vus an electro chant, whose cyber vocal flips circuitry like an overnight software upgrade. "Lord" commands a banger uptick, while Asian-influenced "Body English" lays a percussive clearing. Closer "Worstway" skitters a prog-pop suite repeating: "The same dreams always haunt me/ Down the same streets always walking/ The same beat always knocking/ Won't you save me?" Absolutely. Hand me my bifocals.