Video: Scammers “A Song That Can Exist”

14 Feb 2014 — Henry Schiller

Channeling Scott Walker through Angelo Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks soundtrack, Missouri’s Phil Diamond – who records music as Scammers – is the pop martyr we didn’t know we desperately needed until his hands were nailed to a keyboard in the shape of god's mightiest, most succulent minor chords. “A Song that Can Exist” is the tautest seven-and-a-half minutes of iterative dream pop that anyone has probably ever thought to record; a sensual elegy of molting synths, chest-cracking bass, and a snappy jazz beat that swings carefully from resuscitative sharpness into melancholy ambience.

Diamond’s voice invokes the comfortable surprise of getting to the center of a Creamsicle in a dark movie theater. Each new eruption of lyrics is a cool swoop of doom, a frosty glisten to burst through the already icy darkness. This is the sound of the lights coming on so slowly that you’ve convinced yourself you’re only seeing things, all the while Diamond wraps you tighter into the cosmic joke of his existential pain. His confrontational softness and lyrical self-possession put Diamond in league with out-of-step new wave groups like Tears for Fears or Talk Talk. A charming, subversive elegance that pop music has ignored for far too long.

“A Song That Can Exist” is accompanied by experimentally cut home footage of snowy mountains, ski-lifts, and desolate beaches. The track almost seems to fill the video’s bleakness, coloring every frame of black and white footage with the warm tones of baked earth.

Sad people who are not Phil Diamond, please take note: apparently you have been feeling things wrong.

Scammers’ album, A Song That Can Exist, is out February 17 on Jehu & Chinaman.