Review Summary: Oh Chillwave, where’ve you been?
When chillwave really became a thing around 2009 with acts like Toro y Moi and Washed Out debuting ethereal (and evidently ephemeral) singles that took traditional pop songs and basically deep-fried them in reverb, one could be forgiven for altogether ignoring the subgenre. For people who liked twee, simple arrangements coated in reverb, there was already the ambient genre, and for people who liked hip-hop-indebted electronic soundscapes, there was the post-hip-hop of Bonobo, Flying Lotus, and Nujabes (RIP). So when the subgenre finally imploded in on itself around 2011 when post-dubstep became the go-to genre for producers hoping to establish cred with the in-crowd, the artists in question could either hop aboard that train or go down with the ship of chillwave. But for some producers, the way forward was permutation: skillfully cutting out the superfluous parts of chillwave and adding a little dirt, a little weight and effectively pushing the dead horse down the road to a proper burial. Of these artists is Spazzkid, who upon debuting around 2010 with some remixes proceeded to drop one-offs and dual sided singles in the three years leading up to his debut album, “Desire 願う.”
“願う” is a weird kind of album, with one foot firmly in future territory and the other steeped deeply in the past. The past foot draws liberally from the soft and frilly textures of the aforementioned chillwave genre, mixing unintelligibly reverbed vocals with equally hesitant synths and drum-patterns that would make anyone on Brainfeeder or Warp a little nostalgic. The other one looks forward to the emerging micro-trap and already established post-dubstep genres, pulling rhythmic and sequencing ques from them. All across “Desire願う” there are the skittering hi-hats and bodacious drums that all but define the trap genre, but they’re tastefully mixed with chopped vocals, soul samples and found-sound quirks that mark the early post-dubstep period. So to really call this a “chillwave” album might be doing a disservice to Spazzkid’s wholehearted attempt at synthesis.
The album itself sounds gorgeous, the influences clearly being worthwhile enough. Some of the album's best tracks (i.e. 'If Not You Then Who', 'Getting to Know You') seamlessly mix Spazzkid's influences and add in a soulful flair that calls to mind Nujabes or Shigeto. But the issues with the album come with just how willing it is to show its progenitors. There are certainly elements of Nujabes, Flying Lotus, Toro y Moi and Mount Kimbie in here. And when working so hard to synthesize all these disparate elements into something remotely palatable, it helps to at least dial down some of their influences in the service of arrangement. The soul sample that cuts into the latter half of “Forgiveness” is wholly unnecessary and shows Spazzkid’s eagerness to embrace the tenets of the genre over the consistency and flow of the music itself.
But don’t let this give you the wrong idea. If you long for the days when FlyLo made hip-hop and not jazz or the days when Mount Kimbie knew when to keep their mouths shut or even the days when Nujabes was among the living, this album will do enough to scratch those itches, to varying degress. If you’re looking for a moderately soulful future trap/post-dubstep album that you can bump to all summer, this is indeed what you’re looking for. But if you’re looking for the earth-shattering chillwave revival that Toro y Moi, Washed Out and Com Truise have been worked towards for nearly half a decade, you’re gonna want to keep looking.
