Today, London based trio Strong Asian Mothers release their new single ‘All I Do’. Showing off a darker side to their pop/hip-hop hybrid, the new track is a whirlwind journey of stuttering percussion, brass stabs, eerie sustained synth chords and ever-increasing energy. Maintaining their all important, healthy dose of fun and lightheartedness – ‘All I Do’ is marked step forward for the band – perhaps their most emphatic and daring release to date.
Lyrically the track starts off as if it were a boozy ode to intoxication with the “All I do is drink / all I do is drink” refrain. But when the rest of the line is revealed – “tap water from the kitchen sink” – it turns it into something more playful and more surreal. From that point on the lyrics appear to be a flow of ideas from the subconscious, all stemming from that opening line.
There’s a distinct tension and darkness underneath the playfulness of the track, a notion mirrored by the band: “When writing the lyrics I had a recurring image in my head of someone alone in a flat, half losing their marbles. Of this person having a sense of being haunted, of having an excess of odd energy in them, of time passing by (badly spent), and, of course, taking regular trips to the kitchen sink for top ups from that tap.”
