PinkPantheress
Fancy That
WARNER
When we first caught quick wind of Britain’s PinkPantheress, it came through the microaggressions of short, sharp hyper-trap songs that wrapped more femme energy, emotion, and harmony into melodies rarely lasting even two minutes than a bag of Destiny’s Child tracks, at 78 RPM, quickly shaken and stirred. How tack-sharp was PinkPantheress’ brand of rapier-harried R (no time for the and-B)? Even her 2022 remix collection for To Hell with It didn’t find tracks lasting longer than a few minutes.
The animated dynamics and D&Bing, juggled economy of PinkPantheress’ Fancy That—a brusque mixtape follow-up to her 2023 debut album that eats like a hearty meal; an effort with an EP’s brevity, but with an album’s worth of heft—doesn’t leave room for boredom, and never finds a moment of air that goes past three minutes. And yet, together with her Norwegian co-producer and writer Aksel Arvid, PinkPantheress has actually managed to create a series of sample-heavy songs that feels cohesive, are both breathtaking and breathless, all while allowing her breathy vocals the time to settle into something resembling chorus/verse conventionality without eschewing the inventive impulse. And she even has time for an intermission.
The rat-a-tat-tat-tat Gamble-Huff-Bell speed-soul of “Noises,” the punky Panic! at the Disco dance of “Tonight,” and the Sugarbabes-filled pop sweets of “Nice to Know You” are balanced handsomely with the (relatively) slowed tempos of “Stateside” and the almost-epically strung out closing track, “Romeo,” for a full work featuring the tightest of hooks, the fastest of grooves, and enough air for PinkPantheress to get several R&B-like words in edgewise.
