The 1975 - Music for Cars [Clear]

The 1975's Music for Cars is the 2013 EP where the band's cinematic ambitions came into focus, and where "Chocolate" made them impossible to ignore.

Their third EP in under a year, it arrived on Dirty Hit just months before their self-titled debut album. Matty Healy, George Daniel, Adam Hann and Ross MacDonald built it around "Chocolate", co-produced with Mike Crossey during the album sessions, then recorded the rest themselves in Healy's bedroom at Rose Cottage in Cheshire. The approach kept the band in control of their sound from the start.

"Chocolate" is the sugar rush: bright, spiky guitars and rapid-fire hooks wrapped around a sly tale of a run-in with the police. Around it, "Anobrain" opens in a haze of ethereal voices, "HNSCC" drifts by as an ambient interlude full of reverb and birdsong, and "Head.Cars.Bending" builds a darker, widescreen mood that hints at the band's later experiments.

Its balance of pop hits and atmospheric detours mapped out everything they would go on to do, from glossy stadium choruses to late-night electronic reveries and everything in between.

For anyone who discovered them later, this is the blueprint, small in size but surprisingly big in ambition, and a fascinating glimpse of a band about to break wide open.

Tracklist

Side A

1. Anobrain
2. Chocolate
3. Hnscc

Side B

1. Head.Cars.Bending
2. Me