Racecar

It comes across as pop but constantly changes shape: it slips, swerves, ripples, sparkles. All with tools that lie far outside the usual industry framework.
“Pink Car” is the second album by Racecar, a trio from East Lothian, Scotland. They write and record at home, fund their projects through crowdfunding (with help from public body Creative Scotland), and dream of strings, horns, session players—the kind of ambition that grows in a living room, but knows it needs more to fully unfold. And in fact, though mostly made in a home studio, the album plays like bedroom rock on a wide canvas, steering clear of lo-fi habits and faux-naïf aesthetics.

The recognition gained with their debut “Orange Car”, recorded entirely within singer Izzy Flower’s home and awarded two BBC Track of the Week titles, gave the band both momentum and ambition. “Pink Car” is their attempt to raise the bar—preserving the same creative spark, but with more elaborate resources. A £20,000 budget allowed them to bring in external musicians, an experienced orchestrator, and aim for broader, more instrumentally rich arrangements without turning their backs on their DIY beginnings.
Izzy Flower, Robin Brill and Calum Mason build on a few solid pillars—an unapologetically DIY approach, a bright and playful pop sensibility, a clear leaning toward electro and funk—and treat genres like building blocks they keep reshuffling. No influence ever takes over: the record has the sly, lopsided bounce of The Chap and something of the quirky theatricality of the Fiery Furnaces. At times it flirts with Knower’s hyperactive electro-funk; at others it brings to mind the fractured traces of folktronica (Zammuto, Diagrams, Gablé) or the shapeshifting prog-pop of Finnish outfit Rubik. A patchwork of echoes—mostly unconscious, probably—that track by track turns into a language of its own.

Many songs start from something seemingly straightforward, then take a turn. “Got You Into It,” “Fall Leave” and “Whenever I” sound like ADHD versions of power pop: fast, busy, bursting with color—fans of Crying’s cartoony power-prog will know the vibe. “Zephyr” flows in 7/8 like that was the most natural pulse, balancing a driving bass and violin flourishes that hint at both Pentangle and Stereolab—Izzy Flower’s crystal-clear voice somehow bridges the two. “Inevitable” starts with a classic indie-pop frame, blows up into a full-blown orchestral passage, then veers again into a surprise rap section—maybe the album’s most jarring and thrilling shift.

There’s space for restraint, too. “Metronome” floats slow and hypnotic, all breathy vocals and reverb-soaked textures, channeling the misty art-pop of Aurora. “Remains” moves the other way: electronic crunch, flashes of pop clarity, a push-pull between industrial and electropop. Every track nudges the frame outward—but the album never feels like a patchwork. Coherence doesn’t come from sticking to a sound, but from the way every detour feels deliberate, and change flows naturally.

“Pink Car” is progressive pop that doesn’t need to label itself as such. It proves its point track after track, finding its true shape in freedom and autonomy—not just from genre tags, but from bedroom tropes, and even the indie scene itself.

(English version created with AI-assisted translation)

23/04/2025