Mixing the grime with the glam is the stock and trade of Detroit duo TART. That paradigm is made clear in their first video, for the tune “Lobbyist” off their debut EP, Knots.
Pulling from Blondie-style New Wave and the Kills’ brand of minimalistic blues-punk, TART casts a bewitching brew of sounds. Both visually and audibly, Zee Bricker vamps it up in a range of vocal tones while guitarist Adam Michael Lee Padden goes wild with the riffing.
“‘Lobbyist’ is about somebody in a position of power taking advantage of a person in a lesser or vulnerable position,” Padden says of the song “Whether that be financially, sexually, mentally, or physically, it seems to be happening more than it should.”
The video, directed by Santi Ngyuen, finds Bricker and Padden in their element. The stark, white-washed background and the choreographed dancers contrast with the song’s darker textures, owed to the crisp beats that reverberate spaciously and the sinuous guitar lines. A blazing vibrancy is laced with nocturnal ominousness, and the resultant vibe is akin to being in a hallucinatory discothèque.
The four-song Knots is available on iTunes and TART’s Bandcamp page.