Call it Chillwave, Dreambeat or Glo-fi but whatever it is i’m in full support of this sound. The whole genre is like finding an old tape collection of damaged PBS pop music that was never released. I have the lucky opportunity to be in Brooklyn at this time which eats this music up which always isn’t a bad thing because that means live shows while the sound is fresh to the ears. One band i’m excited about is Small Black, their song Pleasant Experience makes me feel like i’m close to real warm water while Despicable Dogs is a bit more noisier and has hints of Big Country – In A Big Country PLEASE TELL ME YOU HEAR IT! or am I crazy?
Small Black & Washed Out
01.28.2010
I hear it… Thanks for the tip tho’ – I’d never have come across these guys otherwise.
Gordon Wott –
phew, thanks! 🙂
Small Black is good stuff. But I can’t say I hear Big Country in Pleasant Experience. Maybe I haven’t been listening to Big Country hard enough. Chillwave/Dreambeat/Glo-fi is a fantastic genre. At this point it seems almost impossible to categorize anything now. When people ask me what kind of music my band makes I am at a loss to give them an answer. I’m like, “Well, it’s like folksy, quasi-ambient, new wave, instrumental hip hop.” They just nod. Maybe I need to move to Brooklyn.
DJ Hegemoney
Big Country is only in “Despicable Dogs” I think, I like your genre taste, I usually just say slow melodic electronic stuffs
i think a lot of the chillwave/glofi/etc songs sound like tears for fears/kate bush and music from the poignant scenes in john hughes movies. bat for lashes, “madder red” by yeasayer, etc, all would have sounded right at home in the mid-late 80s.
Good to see Small Black on here. I have been wondering when you’d post them.
i hear a little bit of big country, but i really hear “the safety dance” on the arpeggiator.
damn shawn you beat me to it!
good stuff. oh, speaking of 80’s, i don’t know if you all are into The Mary Onettes, but just discovered about two weeks ago they dropped a new album back in november. i thought it was a really good follow up to their previous album.
hahaha. I hear it too, big country. love it.
jonathan –
wow great find! will post
Chillwave is the new Dreampop.
chillbeat/glo-pop/dreamgaze – more quasi “new/hip” genres
most of these songs are not exciting and seem like they would be boring live… granted i have heard some good stuff like coyote clean up’s “hammering time”
All of this Chillwave sounds “nice”, but is completely unmemorable.
It’s funny what becomes memorable. Even now there are people who have never listened to the Beatles, The Who or The Rolling Stones. There are a number who never heard The Police, The Cars or Duran Duran. There are even a few who never listened to Pearl Jam, Nirvana or The Smashing Pumpkins. These songs that are coming out are going to be their songs by their bands. These tracks will give congruity and continuity to their narrative. And I am okay with that. I envy the kid who will get all sentimental listening to Highway of Endless Dreams by M83. Maybe that same kid listens to The Dark Party remix of Napping Captain by Jogger while looking out the window of an RV on a road trip with his grandparents and he never forgets it. To me, that kid is lucky.
haha yep heard it! “like a lovers voice on a mountain side”
@Andy W: I totally disagree. This style of music, more than any other I’ve heard lately, absolutely sticks in my head. After a couple listens to Washed Out’s record, I found myself humming the tunes and absolutely craving that disconnected, lo-fi 80s sound. Memory Tapes is exactly the same way.
@Jakub: Thanks for posting this stuff, please continue! I’m still trying to articulate what it is about this style that’s got me so enamoured, and I’m having a hard time finding enough music to satisfy my cravings. This helps!
Oh I love them, do they have an album already?
love it.
The natural result of years of Boards of Canada and post punk.
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