The song of the lonely living room dancer

By Henry Lipput

“When The Radio Plays” (Jangleshop Records) is the second single by Shapes Like People, the husband-and-wife duo of Carl Mann and Kat Mann, from next year’s Ticking Haze album.

Like Paul McCartney’s “Another Day” and The Pearlfishers’ “Love & Other Hopeless Things” Shapes Like People blends both happiness and melancholy. And it has one of my favorite opening lyrics of any recent song:

Happiness comes and goes like buses

If only I was on time.

Kat’s vocal hits both the joy and sadness in a song about a woman who is always missing the chance to find love but keeps up her spirits by dancing to her favorite songs when they’re played on the radio. With Carl’s chunky guitar riffs and cool synth strings the song is not far from the disco songs that occasionally make her happy.

Carl, of the UK band The Shop Window, has said he “needed a female vocal for some demos he planned to pitch to other artists. To get a feel for what they might sound like he asked Kat to sing and relace his guide vocals but couldn’t bring himself to part with the songs afterwards.” And so Shapes Like People was born.