A Closer Listen
Last summer we covered galen tipton & Holly Waxwing‘s keepsakeFM, which six months later became one of our top twenty albums of the year, as well as one of the happiest. The vibe continues on dewCLAWS as tipton collaborates with Shmu, while inviting seven other contributors, an Orange Milk hallmark. While not structured as a mixtape, the album’s energy level remains high, thanks to an overload of upbeat tempos and laser sounds. The listening experience is like playing pinball in the middle of an active arcade.
We won’t be printing out all of the track titles, as they won’t translate to every device: 29 emojis are used for the titles of twelve tracks. It’s clear that the artists are having fun. The words “zigzags” and “zany” are used in the press release and are the musical opposite of “zzz”s.
While the tape is often abstract, it does contain potential floor fillers. “It’s Alive/pre-knights (feat. Ko T.C.)” boasts a steady techno beat. “Wish 4” begins with the words, “lately it’s been hard to fall asleep,” matching the message with racing synth and drums, underlining the insomnia. By the end, it seems as if the singer is perfectly happy staying awake. “tourniquet (feat. mimete)” is one of the album’s shortest tracks, a two-minute, 140 B.P.M. invitation to put down the drink and venture beyond the safety of the bar.
The deep bass and tangled electronics of “eat plastic” are the album in a microcosm: repeatedly tripping over its feet without falling down, the diagonal music somehow makes room for a vertical singer. It sounds like a ship of aliens landing on another ship of completely different aliens before the first group can even announce its intentions. The album closer starts off like a retro 80s synth ballad before giving way to crunchier timbres and swifter beats. “dorsiFlᶒx” fills nearly a quarter of the entire set, but makes the most of its eleven minutes, at three and a half minutes turning into what sounds like a completely different track, stuttering and percussive, and venturing into IDM territory before it breaks down like faulty dial-up. As the tape collapses under its own weight, it leaves behind a bank of fried filters and a room of exhausted dancers. (Richard Allen)
Wed Jun 25 00:01:28 GMT 2025