Jenny Lewis & Serengeti – “Vroom Vroom”
At first glance they are not the most obvious collaborators: Jenny Lewis, an emotive indie rock legend turned stylish heartland rocker, and Serengeti (aka Dave Cohn), a hip-hop iconoclast who came up with the avant-garde Anticon crew. But Serengeti has previously teamed with the likes of Sufjan Stevens, Justin Vernon, and Owen Ashworth, and Lewis is way too quirky and adventurous to contain her creativity to just one kind of music. So perhaps it’s not that surprising that “Unblu,” Lewis and Serengeti’s collaborative single from December, was such a delight.
That song, which arose when a friendship forged at a music festival snowballed into a long-distance collab, was a dark and moody ballad that gorgeously meshed Lewis’ Auto-Tuned vocals with reflective Serengeti bars. A press release described it as “dreamy and downtempo French New Wave,” which gets at least partway there. “Vroom Vroom,” our second offering from the duo, is nothing like that. Produced once again by Lewis and Fog’s Andrew Broder, the beat pounds and clatters, its pentatonic piano punctuated by loopy outbursts from Lewis. In the middle it transforms into glitchy uptempo electronic music, just for fun. This one’s about cutting toxic people out of your life to preserve your peace of mind.
Watch Lewis’ fun lo-fi video for “Vroom Vroom” below.
Their original statement accompanying “Unblu” mentioned five songs, so presumably there are three more surprises in store from this pair.