Late Aster - City Livin’

A Closer Listen

City Livin’ is a tribute to the era of lo-fi beats, recorded on vintage 90s equipment, which gives it the slightly abraded feel of a well-loved cassette.  The tape hum in the background is an intentional part of the music, a nostalgic byproduct of the recording process. Tonje Thilesen’s striking cover is a further fantasy; imagine living on a peninsula that imitated a cassette player to the extent that a community swimming pool became the community sound system!

Although it arrives late in the album, “Watts”, which features an excerpt from Alan Watts’ lecture “Still the Mind: An Introduction to Meditation” is a fine place to begin.  The words echo and stutter across the beats until they come into focus.  “Somebody plays music; you listen, and eventually, you understand the point of the music.  That point will be in the music itself.”  The point of playing City Livin’ is to experience the feeling of the music, in this case new music that conjures the old.  Throughout the set, trumpet and French horn aid this sonic and emotional capture, scattering dusty jazz among the beats.  The instruments are particularly effective on instrumental tracks such as “French horn Girl” and “The Coda,” simultaneously calming and uplifting the spirit.  The title track bristles with the energy of the city, jazzy horns joined with rapid-fire beats, bursting with bustle. “Razaab” cools things down, water-soaked timbres like memories rescued from the flow of time.  “Virtuous” ticks and trills, a metronome of filtered energy.

Sweet vocals populate the other tracks, including surprising covers of tracks by Gillian Welch and You And Me And You.  In its way, a memory is like a cover track, a new version of something old, accurate in spirit if not in fact.  Late Aster‘s gift is to combine past and present in a manner that feels authentic, producing a mix tape for the modern era.  (Richard Allen)