If you haven’t yet been introduced to Rhye, slip into something a little more comfortable and dim the lights. These international smooth operators specialize in exceedingly silken tones. Toronto singer-player Mike Milosh sounds like Sade (no joke) and his Dutch-bred producer counterpart Robin Hannibal has a knack for xx-level subtlety. Their recent Innovative Leisure debut Woman was remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it finds these two losing themselves so completely in a wonderfully “womanly musical sphere — a transatlantic art-house impression of quiet storm soul.”
One of the album’s highlights is “3 Days,” a song about a sex binge that our host predicts will end in one of the lovers devouring the other completely. To offset the intensity of the lyrics, Rhye have paired the clip with vintage footage of black-and-white burlesque dancers, bygone babes of the stage who deliver elaborate striptease with class and aplomb. The song itself gushes with synth bubble, piano hits, woodwind swells, and a busy little beat.
