Santi White knows how to keep the panting bloggers who've hyped her over
the last year happy. Just last month she offered up the Top Ranking
mixtape free to right-clickers, made with the ever excellent Diplo.
Featuring a natty cover of Guns of Brixton, it preempts Santogold's
latest single nicely.
Lights Out has hints of late period Clash, The Cars and a
healthy dollop of Donna Summer's post-disco pop to boot. Her cooing
vocals are nicely understated over Pixies-esque guitars and simple
drum programming. Equally brooding and breezy, it's almost begging to be
used in a driving montage from a naff 80's flick.
Santogold has quite rightly had the hump with being labelled as R&B by
lazy hacks and retailers, asserting that she's more Bad Brains than
T-Pain. But she is a tough one to pin down. Lights Out at least
adds one more possible genre to her repertoire - Montage Pop.