One of the most powerful things about music is its ability to kick us back into certain months, years or periods of our lives—whether we want to be thrown into the past or not. For me, LCD Soundsystem’s now-legendary “All My Friends” is the epitomical example of a song’s capability to transcend time: the seven-minute epic vividly brings me back to clear-cut hours of my history.
“Chess,” the most recent single from Petite Noir’s The King of Anxiety EP, picks up where “All My Friends” left off eight years ago. Like its predecessor, the track feeds on a propulsive rhythm that only becomes more potent as the minutes pass. And though “Chess” may seem simple on the surface, the song reveals its true nature as it unfurls, proving—like the game its named after—that it’s much more complicated than it seems.