KH, 'Looking At Your Pager'

In that glorious late '90s and early '00s R&B mini-canon of women singing about kicking shady broke boys to the curb, 3LW's "No More (Baby I'ma Do Right)" always sounded a bit subdued. The hit didn't have the swagger of a "No Scrubs," the breakneck interrogation of a "Say My Name," the maturity of an "It's Not Right But It's Okay." 3LW's "No More (Baby I'ma Do Right)" had a teen pop sheen and a schoolyard charm.

But in the skittery "Looking At Your Pager" from Four Tet's side-project KH, the deft producer loops a sample into a siren song of built up tension. Kiely Williams' lisp-y delivery — "getting a lil' tired of your broken promithes, promithes" — gets increasingly stressed with each repeat, buoyed by a vibrating, deep bass synth that sounds almost like a revving motorbike threatening to go full throttle. And yet, in waves, an airy, twinkling melody washes over the "Looking At Your Pager," breaking through its hard, club-worthy exterior as if to remind the subject of 3LW's disappointment: this could be sweet, if only you'd let it be.

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