A Closer Listen
Happy admission: I still have a CD player in my car. My prior car had a tape player, and for those who are wondering, Chrysler once made cars with turntables. I still burn CD-Rs, and tailor the selection to the length of my trip: 20 minutes to the bookstore, 45 to sports, 70 to the beach. A perfectly-timed trip has the disc starting when I leave the driveway and ending when I arrive at my destination. fever dreams is just over 18 minutes long, perfect for those shorter trips. Even better, it has the feel of a mixtape from that era: hip-hop instrumentals flavored with hints of disco, funk, film scores and jazz: sample-laden and continuously sequenced. While driving, I can imagine I am in that era, making up rhymes to lay over the beats.
The EP exudes authenticity, although the producer’s identity and location are secret. The label calls this a debut album (despite the length), arriving on the heels of two solid singles from the summer of ’22. If this is indeed a debut for the artist, and not just the moniker, it’s arrived fully formed. Languid and laid back, although not quite blunted, the EP has the feel of a retro classic.
Beginning with a beat and a loop, “hallucinations” sets the stage, adding samples as it develops, slotted perfectly into the invisible grooves. Brass, organ, and a wisp of female vocals lead into the soulful “the good old days,” one of the EP’s early singles, loping forward on a head-nodding groove, light trumpet and an operatic wail. The nostalgic title is well chosen; we dare listeners to separate this from tracks played on radio’s “throwback weekends.” “rainbow brain” is a reminder of the early disco era as well as the Age of Aquarius, a psychedelic journey with a spoken word sample: “Oh, that’s real good. Nice. I didn’t know I could feel like that.” We leave it up to the listener to guess what the song is about.
We appreciate the title “once upon a vhs,” as yes, some of us are old enough to have owned these too; and like cassettes, they are two formats old, the precursors to DVDs and streaming. The irony, of course, is that fever dreams is billed as a “beat tape” but is a digital-only release. Fortunately I can still pretend, by creating a physical object at home and inserting it into my dashboard, as long as my old car still runs. Yes, I’m holding on to the past, but so is art test, and it’s a beautiful thing. (Richard Allen)
Sat May 04 00:01:59 GMT 2024