Late TV “Fools Fools Fools”

Late TV continue their grooving exploration of the human condition and it’s complexities that they artfully established on their previous single ‘Night Tennis’. This time, the band shift up the gears from that louche cruise through the greasy night, and roar towards a rendezvous at a neon lit cocktail bar, where the music feels like it’s waving cash at the barman and impatiently demanding another, and another and another.

The song struts in with stomping drums as the bass guitar groove dances around the melodic synth lines, while howling harmonized guitars urgently pull us up onto the dance floor and into the story of a hopeless romance.

Lyricist and Vocalist Luke J Novak explains; “I initially wrote this song as a Tom Waits style drunken ballad, in the vein of ‘Invitation To The Blues’, but the band weren’t having it. Martin (Keyboards) suggested making it more of a Prince style Funk-New Wave crossover track, and amazingly it all just fell into place. It’s still theatrical, but with more bounce.”

Once again we follow a hopeful romantic on a night out, only whereas in ‘Night Tennis’ they found thoughtful solace through their thwarted advances, on ‘Fools Fools Fools’ our protagonist’s lust fueled desperation runs headlong into a wall of ambivalence only to constantly repeat the process despite its bruising futility. The tension builds to a boiling point only to give way to a moment of clarity where our hapless suitor momentarily reflects on why they keep returning for more punishment.

Culling influences from jazz cats and art rockers, B-movies and trash television via Lynch and Tarentino, Late TV are the moonlighting house band for a surreal all-night dream club nestled amidst the cultural detritus of television’s after hours. Guitarist and vocalist Luke J Novak and drummer Richard ‘Beu’ Bowman left their hometown of Kidderminster and hooked-up with Chicago’s jazz obsessed bassist Ryan Szanyi and Parisian keyboard maestro Martin Coxall in London. Kick-started with the release of their brilliant ‘Citizen’ single, the group then appeared at Standon Calling Festival in 2018 alongside Goldfrapp and spiritual forefather Bryan Ferry. In 2021 singles ‘Night Tennis’ and ‘Fools Fools Fools’ both debuted on BBC Introducing.

‘Fools Fools Fools’ is the second single to be taken from the band’s forthcoming debut album, where the group explore the postmodern wastelands of pop as high-brow/low-brow mutant junk dwellers, collecting the shards of our fragmented culture and building something both irresistibly dangerous and dangerously irresistible.