Across the record, we traverse the dynamism of electronic music, the joy of overt pop and the class of hip-hop, while maintaining an escapist and cerebrally sensitive atmosphere.

Tel-Aviv is Israel’s “city that never sleeps”: a world leader in culture, liberalism and vegan food as well as home to electro-alt-pop producer Noga Erez. In her second album Kids, co-written and produced with collaborator and partner Ori Rousso, Erez continues the tradition of debut Off The Radar, in its unstable and subversive but smooth soundscapes, but dresses it in a slightly poppier outfit. Erez attempts to create a body of work that is ultimately fun and escapist, while also encouraging an opportunity for thought and inspiration, tackling the media, identity and political climates both global and national. Kids is a reflection of the way Erez has learned to live in a world challenged and made incomprehensible by forces beyond control. It wholly succeeds at keeping light and fun simultaneously with an acknowledgement, and a willingness to pose a challenge, to the political surroundings. 

Across the record, we traverse the dynamism of electronic music, the joy of overt pop and the class of hip-hop, while maintaining an escapist and cerebrally sensitive atmosphere, Erez’s sound is the lovechild of Bjork and Frank Ocean, who has been heavily influenced by Kendrick and FKA Twigs. These differences in style never feel out of place; the unpredictable and intense, unmistakably Noga Erez sound throughout Kids is highly sophisticated and ambitious. 

There’s a clear highlight on the record in lead single, ‘VIEWS’, which features ROUSSO & Reo Cragun. The vocal tones in the track’s refrain are irresistible; its pace in the verses is relentless and creepy, like controlled aggression underpinned by deep bass. Its impending doom seems to build with the rising “shit just hit the fan” and then calms in descent for a closing chorus. Second single ‘You So Done’ is another highlight. It slows right down and jabs at the subject’s opponents to the point of exhaustion, reduced to invitations to “Shut up”, all while being whirled around a jagged piece of dubstep.

Overconsumption of coffee, self-doubt, and dry conversation-led ‘Story’ sounds like early Calvin Harris through its verses but falls into slow, heavy depths with the chorus. That depth continues into ‘Knockout’, with skitting and skatting of drums and flickering synth lines embellished by ringside bells and barely-audible rapped lines to smite. There’s more heavy hip-hop influences in ‘End of the Road’, a 90s-infused journey of positivity and rearranged cliche with some delicious bars. ‘Bark Loud’ is a moodier, less positive journey with some equally delicious bars and the BLIMES-featuring title track ‘Kids’ is a journey through the sounds of a haunted house in the company of a left-wing troupe from the local cafe, featuring yet more delicious bars and piano-room sincerity.

The album opener proper, ‘Cipi’ is a smooth pop number in the same vein of mid-noughties British pop like Lily Allen or Kate Nash with extra sprinklings of drama and groove. Album closer ‘Switch Me Off’ glistens with groove and smooth haziness reminiscent of Lana Del Rey, but in many moments, dragged through a synthesizer, drum machine and a keytar all at once. In the paradisiacal ‘NO News on TV’ the record's most skippy, commercial pop song, celebrates the freedom of no more news, phone screens and relentless advertising. The track itself is most probably borne on a wave of Erez’s recent experience, of getting rid of her TV and stopping all consumption of news. The hoppy tongue-in-cheek mood of the song is almost tauntingly joyous, showing us the purity of total escape. The track is followed by ‘Fire Kites’ which is the polar opposite: a hard crash back into war, blood, floods and bombs. It’s a guilt-dripped whip to reality, and a stark reminder that withdrawal cannot be permanent.

Noga Erez wanted to create a record both fun and inspirational, to escape and to challenge, and Kids succeeds. It starts a place for Erez to make sense of the dysfunctional world around her and becomes a space for human beings to come together and communicate its most basic fundamentals of emotion. If all news and bought views are bad news for everybody, the unmistakable Noga Erez sound, of seamlessly melded deep bass, bold pop and easy hip-hop, is a sure way to escape and connect despite the incomprehensible aspects of our reality.