Washed Out is Not Washed Up

               Ernest Greene (better known as the first chillwaver) decided the waves needed to get a bit chiller: he’s announced the release of his first album. As his music is so heavily focused on the summer, the July 12^th release date on Sub Pop makes sense. Hopefully, just as the summer begins to drag on, we’ll have his sweet “With and Without” album to give lazy afternoons a better soundtrack.

                I can’t express the joy I have at reporting such good news. Forever has gone by since chillwave began with Ernest, a mild-mannered librarian from Perry, Georgia. He seduced us with spaced-out vocals and reverb, so much reverb. Reverb got reverbed, up to the point where you wondered the origin of such dreamy sounds. 

                Singles have been Washed Out’s stock and trade. Thankfully most of the album’s track list appears to be brand-new material. Having an album consist of nothing but a collection of EPs always feels lazy to me, Panda Bear, Uffie, and Real Estate fell into that trap. Obviously I feel dramatically different emotions regarding those three albums, but I do admit to enjoying a surprise.

                Washed Out doesn’t exactly seem terribly interested in surprises. In fact, the biggest surprise I could hear from Washed Out would be a continuation of his old sound, the sound that introduced “Portlandia” on IFC (It’s All Around You). Lately a great deal of chillwave bands have shunned that moniker, with Toro Y Moi going towards a full band sound, Ducktails taking a more tangible approach, and I’m not sure what Neon Indian will do, but I’m assuming he too will try to move behind his old sound. 

                Right now only one of the nine songs is out (You and I), the Adult Swim single with Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek, is the one people have already heard. Everything else will be brand new. I hope the rest of the songs are as good as these five minutes. With further ado, I present to you the song “You and I” available for download. See the below for the rest of the track list:

Washed Out, Within and Without:

1. Eyes Be Closed

2. Echoes

3. Amor Fati

4. Soft

5. Far Away

6. Before

7. You and I

8. Within and Without

9. A Dedication

Big Troubles – Worry 8.0

This is an album that gets better as it progresses. You’re immediately introduced to some sort of The Jesus and Mary Chain/synthesizer hybrid with “Video Rock”. Oh, and you may want to watch out for the volume on this. Its main ally seems to be pure volume.

But don’t let the volume scare you off. First and foremost, this is unabashed pop music, and another victory for New Jersey and the Olde English Spelling Bee respectively. Meeting at Ridgewood High School, they separated for college and got back together to make this great stuff. Each song is pure hyperactive sugar to the brain. 

My preferred picks would be the slow jam “Georgia” which reeks of the best of late 80s. An ultra-distorted guitar plays in the background of the song, adding emotional resonance rather than being an annoying distraction. “Drastic and Difficult” reminds me of surf music fed into a computer and spit right back up at you.

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. Don’t let your initial gut reaction determine your feelings for it, it took me a few listens but proved to be more than worth it.

Janelle Monáe, Of Montreal

When I got there, I noticed that the guy world-renowned for scalping tickets had branched out. Despite the recession, he had hired someone else to assist him with the selling of tickets at outrageous prices. This new hire gave off a less creepy, more incompetent vibe. Like think your old dad as you try to explain to him how to delete spam from his spam folder.

            I’ve seen Janelle perform before, but this was easily the best concert she’s put on. Apparently her new album got infinitely better press than the new Of Montreal. Since I haven’t actually listened to either of their new albums, I’ll have to take the critic’s word on this, but I do plan on doing my own homework once I lay my hands on both.

            Her voice has always been the main draw with everything else as an afterthought. Initially I was skeptical about how good the performance would be, since the early concert video warned me that I would “Dance or Die” but it wasn’t an idle threat. There was some serious dancing going on, along with wholesale slaughter of the non-dancers. After the first song, I got hooked. Grooves came so easy for her band, plus she’s really worked on some of the performance. Now instead of just surfing the crowd to be cool, there were small tokens of weirdness on stage. Dancing nuns and other such pieces helped make it a bit more interesting. Obviously some of this was inspired by Kevin Barnes’ freak feasts, but it did feel original in her hands. I really need to check out her new album (or probably not that new, I just always fall behind on releases).

            Of Montreal started with much fanfare. This had to have been one of their best concerts I’ve seen since I saw them start the “Skeletal Lamping” tour in 2008. Most of the set list noticeably lacked much material from that album, instead using mostly the new stuff (of which “Like a Tourist” seems like a great track) and Hissing Fauna stuff, along with a few oldies. While doing some of the songs, they sort of zoned out and explored the hell out of the funkiness of the tracks; they did that for a few. Seeing them improvise live had to be another surprise, usually they stick with the most conservative renditions of their songs, allowing for little “loose play”.

            Stage performance art has to be sort of Kevin’s calling card. He’s known for stripping down to almost nothing and humping actors with Tiger masks. No Tiger masks were in attendance, but I did get to see a pig-woman go down on him, so that’s got to count. A big bonus was the closeness to the stage; usually I get pushed to the taking out binoculars area. It seems like they revamped a lot of the costumes, and allowed for more breaking of character. Multiple times the dancer/actor things got their costumes ripped off, to show the actual humans beneath. Plus, it looked like they moved on from some of the previous performance pieces, so this tour looks a bit more promising than the last few.

            The encore could not have been better. Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” got covered with the most delicate treatment possible. As the covers progressed, the Of Montreal crew got joined by Janelle and her band. Looking at the stage, it seemed like the end of Saturday Night Live was near, that’s how crowded it was. Plus, they all danced in some sort of near-orgy like energy. Seeing them all there, I hoped either janitorial staff would be asked up on stage, or, more selfishly, that the entire audience goes up there and grope in a fashion befitting Kevin Barnes’ likely perversion.

            What had to have been the best part of the concert was my ability to tune out the audience completely. Usually I can’t keep my head straight with the utter uselessness of the audience as they take off their clothes in heat, or how they make out with their significant other who is unreasonably older/younger than they are, or people tweaking out on drugs. I’m not saying this didn’t happen, but I feel like it was kept to a smaller section than usual.

            Overall, I enjoyed the whole thing and I really want to check out both albums. Way more energy on stage than I could possibly process. 

Okinawa Lifestyle – Naha 7.2

A few dudes from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia making some rather paranoid chillwave music. Much of this feels a little less chillwave, due to the sometimes dark nature of the music. Instead, it feels like a looser variation on Cut Copy’s sound. Perhaps the former Soviet Republic area still has bloghouse since it isn’t very culturally connected to the rest of the world. Also keep in mind Russia invaded it and probably set culture back a decade or two, destroying vital indie infrastructure.

Not that the music suffers from it. There’s a very light feel to most of this, through the incorporation of various field recordings and ambient space. Often this helps lighten the mood, but sometimes it distracts from the energy of the songs itself. For the most part, the longer songs have more appeal than the shorter ones; also having a greater deal of dance-y ness (is that even a thing?).

I consider it interesting how they name themselves after a place they aren’t anywhere near. Also, they seem to offer all this for free on Last.fm and their blogspot. Perhaps they plan on making huge amounts of money touring around their area, like in Azerbaijan or Moldova. But they probably don’t have to pay a lot for rent in Tbilisi, since it is all poor and such. Most likely, they can afford to live there on barista wages and the occasional smuggling of cigarettes job.