If you want to know exactly what people mean when they talk about post-genre music, you could do a lot worse than listen to Paper Nova’s debut album, Black Whole. They epitomize the idea that they are not trying to work beyond the realm of existing genres; rather, they are unburdened by the demarcations and boundaries that have, for too long, kept music tribal.
‘Spider,’ for example, is a mercurial mix of almost-skanking ska-esque metallic riffs that help set up a funky vibe, over which Christiana Wu’s vocals are elegantly draped. And then there is ‘Tricky Time,’ the sort of wonky-pop song that the likes of Talking Heads would have been proud to have in their pocket, deft, danceable and imbued with a vague sense of Eastern European folk traditions.
By total contrast, ‘The Fear With Which We Are Born’ is an understated slice of dark pop, a song that arrives at the listener in a slinky, snake-like fashion, spacious and fluid; ‘Nightingale’ wanders into anthemic and perhaps even symphonic rock territory, and the album ends with ‘Run, Jump, Lay, Float,’ a prowling song full of anticipation and atmosphere.
In hindsight, I get the feeling that Paper Nova would have been this ambivalent about genres, sounds, and styles had they arrived on the scene at any time in contemporary music history, so perhaps they are less post-genre, just anti-genre… but it makes no difference. The only thing that matters is the finished product, and the result, namely Black Whole (nice pun, by the way), is fantastic, whatever tags and labels you want to try to apply to it.
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