DIY's El Hunt on Shura's Nothing's Real
Sci-fi, spaceships, sashaying disco, and a pop song that sounds a teeny bit like Madonna’s Holiday – Shura’s Nothing’s Real has the lot.
It’s been two years since this London bedroom-pop tinkerer first watched the views for Touch’s video soar into the millions, but far from coasting on the winning formula of that ace first song – all hazy contemplation, synth-sprinkled sadness, and yearning melody progressions – Nothing’s Real chases bold, punchy disco, and garishly brilliant fun instead.
What Happened To Us? races forward, veering around on ballsy, plunking bass; thinking out loud, and setting down colloquial, unfrilly observations - “funny how we remember things, how we hold onto the good but don’t want the bad stuff” - slap-bang-wallop next to the positively strutting Make It Up and Tongue Tied. Don’t even get me started on What’s It Gonna Be? which, for its casually subversive, Breakfast Club-channelling music video alone, should be assigned as compulsory viewing when it comes to How To Pen A Proper Big Pop Banger.
Like all good pop records, there’s an unbreakable momentum to Nothing’s Real, which only lulls during deliberate interludes and hidden dinnertimes with Shu’s Russian mother. It’s a deeply personal record, this.
From childhood home recordings constantly creeping over the fringes, to frank, no drama-spared airings off post-breakup ciggies on the Uxbridge road, Shura’s made a little time capsule of a debut. With repeat digs, this record just keeps getting better.
El Hunt (@whattheel)
DIY
