Montag, 1. Aug 2011, 20:13

Artist: Memory Tapes
Album: Player Piano
Label: Carpark

[Excerpt from our review on Groovemine]

While many consider ‘chillwave (glo-fi)’ a dying genre, many artists (Teen Daze, Com Truise, and Memoryhouse, for example) have been keeping the flame alive (still not sure how I feel about it) by being creative with the sound. But in the same way 2009 was the coming-out party for chillwave, 2011 seems to be the year of break-ups for this awkwardly-named sub-genre. With former glo-fi heavyhitters like Toro Y Moi leaving the scene in favor of a broader use of instruments, fans of chillwave were left aghast. Where Toro Y Moi took on a full-band, more lyrically focused mindset, Memory Tapes’ Player Piano plays like a refresh button on chillwave. It’s still shoegazey and nostalgic, but features such a wide array of emotions and instrumentation that are akin to other genres. On the instrumental tracks “Humming” and “Fell Thru Ice II”, Hawk tinkers with vast, expansive sounds — droning organs, pulsating percussion, and tragic horns suck listeners in into a vortex-like sound that’s almost impossible to truly classify as a single genre. Other tracks like “Fell Thru Ice” and “Offers” contain those all too familiar 80’s synthpop loops and samples that are just too irresistible to ignore, but they channel a 70’s nostalgia, not unlike…

Entire review on Groovemine, PLUS FREE MP3: “Wait in the Dark” HERE

Tags: electronic, chillwave, dream pop, indie, dreamwave