Robert Alfons, a.k.a. Trust.
By Trust, from the forthcoming Joyland (Arts & Crafts); streaming at soundcloud.com
The earnest work of hyping, typing record-label publicists can cause convulsions of laughter or, conversely, can leave one awestruck.
The latter applies to Robert Alfons, the Toronto electro auteur who works professionally as Trust. Alfons and his team have created a mysterious persona, one whose "tales of lust, wax and erotomania carry along on a dense black vapour of speed, space and tears," says his doozy of a promotional blurb.
Moving on, we are warned that the young man's spring-coming sophomore album Joyland is "an eruption of guts, eels and joy."
If it all sounds like things might get untidy (if not outright unsanitary), fear not. The new single grinds hard, dark and tight, with platinum bleeps and a disco-glam chorus that bubbles just right. The song is about the flirt and the fright, which might best describe Alfons and/or Trust as well. Now, about those erupting eels….
Brad Wheeler