Paycheque’s “Temporary Love” Pushes Their Debut Further Into Cool, Impermanent Pop

Paycheque’s new single, “Temporary Love,” sharpens the promise of their debut album before the full record has even arrived. The Los Angeles duo already set a tone with “Generic Actress,” the first taste of their self-titled album, but this follow-up feels more immediate and more striking: a funky, lo-fi spin on an exhausted ’80s-pop fantasy, with the kind of glow that sits somewhere between Chromatics and Men I Trust.

That comparison makes sense as soon as the song settles in. There’s a dead-eyed sheen to it, but not in a way that flattens the track. Mixed by Jorge Elbrecht, “Temporary Love” lands like something designed for hot weather and late afternoons, all soft-focus motion and careful restraint. Paycheque themselves frame it as one of the earliest songs they began together and the last one they completed for the album, which gives the single a useful place inside the project: it sounds like something that took time to find its shape.

In the band’s statement, they note that Jane Penny of TOPS came by their house to add flute and background vocals, a contribution that, by their account, helped pull the song together. They also describe the track as being about “embracing impermanence,” and point to city pop and YMO as part of the arrangement’s DNA, especially the vocoder backing vocals in the chorus. It’s a fairly precise self-reading, and on this one the references do line up with what the song is doing. The city pop influence is there once you know to listen for it, but it never turns into pastiche.

“Temporary Love” arrives with a video directed by Paycheque’s Alison Goldfarb, which is available below.

Paycheque is out 6/12 on Mansions And Millions. Pre-order it here.