Pretty Heart :: "Fraud"

The bombastic creep-pop that spills out of Pretty Heart's (nee Morgan Hollinger) "Fraud" is one part Kate Bush (it is, after all, still the Year of Kate Bush, 1979-present) and one part School of Seven Bells. Full of hooks and intentionally unsettling moments, Pretty Heart taps the same pathos that allows Ellie Goulding to say things like, "Do you want my heart between your teeth?", a sort of destructive but very serious approach to love and loss that feels important in an age of emotional unavailability. Love sounds like a dark, weird murder on Pretty Heart's debut EP, Half Asleep, a collection of songs that reflect both a tactile bedroom sensibility, an intimacy in the shadows. "Fraud," the most approachable of the seven track on Half Asleep is rooted in a dressed up keyboard progression and then accented with Hollinger's controlled and confessional vocals, layered into a dizzying and glittering array. It is either the biggest bedroom record of 2012 or a record that will only be in the bedroom until absolutely everyone hears it.