Maybe the kids in Tempe, Arizona need something to do. Leave it to the blandest suburbs imaginable that would make people create “Dunkwave”. Apparently Dunkwave is a mixture of noise, drone, and random basketball samples. Before you groan and say “Geez, that sounds like literally the most awful thing ever” give it a listen. I decided to pretend I hadn’t just read what it actually was and put it on.
Vladee Divacc (a reference to the Serbian basketball player Vlade Divac) consists of Edouard Urcadez and Christian Filardo, two young artists from Arizona State University. Together they’ve made an oddly compelling noise/drone act. Plus, they get rid of the usual boring acts by playing in actual basketball courts (though they get kicked out, which is unfortunate).
Right from the get go, you feel the bouncing ball, though it is disguised through various levels of distortion. “Ostertag” has this is in full as you hear the healthy levels of distortion. The word “Ostertag” swims through the delightful muck.
The vocals grab you though. Sounding like early Pocahaunted vocals, they are sustained for unreasonable periods of time. Mixed with the lower registers, it occasionally transforms into some beautiful moments, like dead in the center of “Drazen Petrovic (Hero)” where they seem to reach a gentle, fleeting moment. “Technical” is just basically vocals for the majority of the song and is shockingly well-done.
Despite what many might see as a pointless gimmick, it does succeed in what it sets up to do. Basketball suddenly becomes a part of this hyper-weird environment. The gimmick actually helps give it a personality, avoiding the fate of being faceless artists making noise drone music. And at only 12 minutes, it doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Below is a link to the album, which you can download for free off of bandcamp: