Spoiler
New band of the week
Music
Paul Lester
Wed 29 Sep 2010 17.13 BST
oOoOO (No 877)
A spectral utterance from beyond the rave, this is like hearing your dance-pop past dragged up ... slowly
Gorgeously grisly ... oOoOO. Photograph: Artwork
Hometown: San Francisco.
The lineup: Christopher Dexter Greenspan (music, production).
The background: A lot of the best music this year has been slow. We're thinking of the Gayngs album, where every track was apparently recorded at a torpid 69bpm, the Drake album, which is like wading in treacle through a dream about the perils of fame, and of course, of all the chillwave stuff, which is never less than sumptuously sluggish. As though to confirm that slow = cool, here comes a confluence of artists too geographically scattered to call a scene, currently being described using a word that connotes not just a leisurely pace but a sense of being pulled under: drag. It's also been called zombie wave, haunted house and witch house, or screwgaze because of its conflation of 90s hip-hop recording techniques and shoegaze sloth, and we even had a bash when we decided last year that Salem were illwave or downtempo crunk.
Whatever the appellation, these artists are doing some amazing stuff. Haunted house and drag are probably the most apposite terms because the music sounds like ghostly apparitions of old dance tunes, only at half-speed. It's gorgeously grisly, like hearing your dance-pop past literally dragged up. And oOoOO – which could be a spectral utterance from beyond the rave – are leading practitioners of the form. It's basically a San Franciscan, Christopher Dexter Greenspan, doing everything, although on some tracks there are female vocals. Hearts is the standout track if you're looking for an easy way into oOoOO; in fact, it stands out as a track of the year, and suggests Greenspan could make it as a pop producer if he applied himself (is he related to Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan, we wonder?). It's dirge-disco, like Chic on downers, or sad, solemn synthpop with an early Depeche Mode/OMD-style keyboard motif and an ethereal girl-sigh of a mournful melody line, but it keeps the right side of vapid/vaporous with its crisp machine clatter and bold but drowsy bass.
Seaww is another one that raises sorrow to tragic proportions, only this time there's a horrorcore edge with its eerily treated vocals that make the track sound like a love ballad crooned by a swamp monster or something. Whatever, it's utterly heartrending. No Summr4u again features a girl on vox. It's not a sampled soul diva as you might expect, but in a way there is crossover here with dubstep, with the meticulous studio-processed beats, and R&B, with the vocals mangled and manipulated to create a sense of dislocated desire. Greenspan is apparently a fan of Ludacris, Young Jeezy, Nicki Minaj and Usher, as well as outfits like Broadcast who are more outwardly experimental. Absorbing it all, he has come up with a new type of sepulchral dance music that takes chillwave into chillingly beautiful gothic territory.
The buzz: "This is like polished-up Salem."
The truth: Fully expect to issue an utterance of awed wonder in keeping with Greenspan's project name when you hear his music.
Most likely to: Haunt you long after you've heard it.
Least likely to: Suffer from irritable vowel syndrome.
What to buy: There are seven tracks on the MySpace, two on Spotify, and there's a single on iTunes, a joint-release with likeminds White Ring.
File next to: White Ring, Modern Witch, Balam Acab, Creep.
Links: http://www.myspace.com/wkwkwkwkwkwkwkwk
Thursday's new band: Electric Youth.
Music
Paul Lester
Wed 29 Sep 2010 17.13 BST
oOoOO (No 877)
A spectral utterance from beyond the rave, this is like hearing your dance-pop past dragged up ... slowly
Gorgeously grisly ... oOoOO. Photograph: Artwork
Hometown: San Francisco.
The lineup: Christopher Dexter Greenspan (music, production).
The background: A lot of the best music this year has been slow. We're thinking of the Gayngs album, where every track was apparently recorded at a torpid 69bpm, the Drake album, which is like wading in treacle through a dream about the perils of fame, and of course, of all the chillwave stuff, which is never less than sumptuously sluggish. As though to confirm that slow = cool, here comes a confluence of artists too geographically scattered to call a scene, currently being described using a word that connotes not just a leisurely pace but a sense of being pulled under: drag. It's also been called zombie wave, haunted house and witch house, or screwgaze because of its conflation of 90s hip-hop recording techniques and shoegaze sloth, and we even had a bash when we decided last year that Salem were illwave or downtempo crunk.
Whatever the appellation, these artists are doing some amazing stuff. Haunted house and drag are probably the most apposite terms because the music sounds like ghostly apparitions of old dance tunes, only at half-speed. It's gorgeously grisly, like hearing your dance-pop past literally dragged up. And oOoOO – which could be a spectral utterance from beyond the rave – are leading practitioners of the form. It's basically a San Franciscan, Christopher Dexter Greenspan, doing everything, although on some tracks there are female vocals. Hearts is the standout track if you're looking for an easy way into oOoOO; in fact, it stands out as a track of the year, and suggests Greenspan could make it as a pop producer if he applied himself (is he related to Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan, we wonder?). It's dirge-disco, like Chic on downers, or sad, solemn synthpop with an early Depeche Mode/OMD-style keyboard motif and an ethereal girl-sigh of a mournful melody line, but it keeps the right side of vapid/vaporous with its crisp machine clatter and bold but drowsy bass.
Seaww is another one that raises sorrow to tragic proportions, only this time there's a horrorcore edge with its eerily treated vocals that make the track sound like a love ballad crooned by a swamp monster or something. Whatever, it's utterly heartrending. No Summr4u again features a girl on vox. It's not a sampled soul diva as you might expect, but in a way there is crossover here with dubstep, with the meticulous studio-processed beats, and R&B, with the vocals mangled and manipulated to create a sense of dislocated desire. Greenspan is apparently a fan of Ludacris, Young Jeezy, Nicki Minaj and Usher, as well as outfits like Broadcast who are more outwardly experimental. Absorbing it all, he has come up with a new type of sepulchral dance music that takes chillwave into chillingly beautiful gothic territory.
The buzz: "This is like polished-up Salem."
The truth: Fully expect to issue an utterance of awed wonder in keeping with Greenspan's project name when you hear his music.
Most likely to: Haunt you long after you've heard it.
Least likely to: Suffer from irritable vowel syndrome.
What to buy: There are seven tracks on the MySpace, two on Spotify, and there's a single on iTunes, a joint-release with likeminds White Ring.
File next to: White Ring, Modern Witch, Balam Acab, Creep.
Links: http://www.myspace.com/wkwkwkwkwkwkwkwk
Thursday's new band: Electric Youth.