If you’re one of those people that think modern pop’s obsession with funk and popular 80s music is losing steam somewhat after almost a decade of dance-forward releases, you might be somewhat right in a sense. Things are transitioning into whatever will come next; be it a very aggressive speaker-tearing era defined by another funk (the Brazilian one) or whatever on earth today’s indie-emo artists are cooking up, or something else entirely. However, on ‘liquid sunshine’, Bangalore artist Tarang Joseph is confidently still making bright, breezy dance-pop, so… dance away, right?

One of the most insufferable elements of this disco revival has been the numerous attempts to put it in a more serious context that needed. Back in the 80s when these genres got popular, there was an element of playfulness and escape to it. This wasn’t music for brooding quietly on a rainy street corner or getting into intellectual debates in hyper-intelligent coffee shop discussions. It was music to have fun to. That’s it. Even the revival in between – the reimagining of disco as house music and all the movements that it spawned – understood this. Well, Tarang seems to understand it too.

‘liquid sunshine’ and its artist ultimately know what they want fundamentally, so they forget about frills and just go about their business. There’s a cool groove, very very chunky bass playing, and enough shout vocals for every possible type of person to sing without worrying about whether they’re sounding good or not (a small side note: there are some people at shows who do worry about that and shouldn’t; remember, no one can hear you, probably). Throw some percussion and very of-the-time guitar parts, and you have a single you can simply enjoy without ruminating on life’s meaninglessness or meaningfulness (your call). That’s what this sound was always meant for; it’s good that artists like Tarang Joseph ‘get it’.