misty4me keep the receipt open on coffee fund

In the back room of a small office there is usually a tin. Stamps, milk, a torn envelope, the next bag of beans. Accountants have a grander name for money parked against a cost you already know is coming. They call it a sinking fund. misty4me have taken the kitchen version of that habit and made it a debut single. coffee fund is out now, and it treats a paper cup like a line in a ledger.

The London duo is Salwa and KingKatsuu. Salwa, Lana Salwa MacIver, is a Scottish and Lebanese-Palestinian songwriter with her own electro-pop catalogue already behind her in east London, Ghost You among the earlier singles. KingKatsuu is James Themba Loyns, English, on bass and guitar. They met in a queue at a burger restaurant opening, talking food until the talk turned into instruments. Keys on one side, guitar on the other. coffee fund is the first public document of that conversation, written by both of them.

The song arrived on a cold Sunday in London, after a snowy trip to Amsterdam. Cheaper coffee there, a slower day, the wish for a life with more room in it. The wish does not survive the return unchanged. Salwa and Loyns have framed the track as the pull between escape and the city they actually live in, the post-Covid and post-Brexit London where a gentler afternoon keeps moving out of reach. The catch is built into the daydream. Gentrification does not stay behind when you go looking for a softer pace. It travels in the same bag.

The lyric keeps the counter voice long enough to feel friendly. “Could I get a shot of vanilla.” “Baby do you want that now.” Then the bookkeeping starts. “Baby I don’t wanna be broke.” “Spend a lot of money back home.” Under the tune a parenthetical loops, “No need to tell me, it’s good coffee,” a small line of confidence in the cup. The chorus breaks into pieces. “No more. Caffeine. We’re not. Sleepy.” Later it corrects the ledger again. “No more you with me not being happy.” Shared ease is entered as an amendment.

At 2:33 the track moves on a light, guitar-led groove. Soft synths and arpeggios lay a bright bed under a drum machine that stays neat and close. The bass is synthetic and sits low without crowding the vocal. Salwa sings sweet and near, a little processed, on melodies that feel spoken until they catch. The middle opens into an instrumental passage where the voice is pitched and nicked, a small glitch in an otherwise sunny electropop frame. MacIver produced with Spiros Maus, who also mixed and mastered. The brightness does quiet work. It lets the cost into the room without raising its voice.

The video, directed and edited by MacIver, keeps those books at ground level. Spider, their mini Yorkshire terrier, under three kilos, wears a GoPro on a harness fitted by hand across months of walks. The idea started when Salwa noticed the dog’s trot locking to the mixes. Bethnal Green passes at ankle height, through Quarantacinque, Nikora, Rastro, Fuckoffee, and Somewhere Green. Shoes, kerbs, paper cups, the undersides of tables. Loyns is credited with the choreography, Spider with the camera. A property listing looks down on a neighbourhood. This one looks up from the pavement, which is where the price of staying actually lands.

coffee fund understands a small fund as a portrait. The jar is for pleasure, and the jar is also evidence. A duo at the start of a catalogue have chosen a two-and-a-half-minute pop song to show how a cheaper cup somewhere else becomes a running tab at home. The charm holds. So does the receipt.

Follow misty4me

coffee fund is out now.

Listen: Spotify

Follow: YouTube · Instagram