Review Summary: a summer soundtrack
It took a dozen years for Uffie to release another full length album, and for someone only familiar with the singles off of that 2010 debut, Sex Dreams and Denim Jeans, I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Would it be more trashy Kesha style popcorn a la Pop The Glock? Had her songwriting chops improved? Personally, the only good thing I’d heard from the MySpace superstar was Difficult, a single that could put me in a trance with its repetitive piano riff and monotone rapped verses. It was corny with its P. Diddy lifted ‘don’t worry if i write rhymes, i write checks’ coming from a skinny white girl trying to play the bragaddocio game, but the vibe just worked. So at best I was hoping for some more Difficult, and at worst, a so-bad-it’s-good return to that autotuned nightmare that spread across the early blogosphere like a disease.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of Sunshine Factory falls into the former camp. Aided by some very modern production, the vibes that Uffie has returned to us are a solid soundtrack to your summer. And to boot, they head in quite a couple new directions that I wouldn’t have expected. Uffie’s voice here is often drenched is reverb, accompanied by slick dancefloor beats and fuzzy guitars. Occasionally a chorus will truly burst out of nowhere, and that’s where Sunshine Factory shines. “Prickling Skin” transforms and expands over its first minute alone, crunchy guitars fading out of the mix for an explosive post-chorus that’s begging to be blasted with the windows down on the way to the beach.
We have Toro Y Moi of all people to thank for a good chunk of the production here. His work is spread over the albums best tunes, from nightclub bangers like “Anna Jetson” and “Sophia” to those ecstatic fuzzy cuts like opener “mvp” or the low-key “giants”. It’s impressive - Chaz pulls her partially into that hazy chillwave sound he spearheaded so many moons ago, but she still manages to surf through a handful of Uffie-esque sounds. A few earlier tracks really lean into a ‘rock’ corner - “Where Does The Party Go” is a dance-infused ska song reflecting on the post-party loneliness that accompanies a luxurious lifestyle. “Dominoes” walks on a pop-punk tightrope, letting Uffie string together non-sequiturs and harmonize about getting coffee. But they both fit her like a glove!
On that songwriting front, it’s not bad. There are questionable moments here and there, but she manages to make those non-sequiturs on Dominoes sound good to my ears, and that’s no small feat. “Anna Jetson” is the standout, comparing herself to an astronaut, begging you to ‘keep up’ with her over synth stabs you’d hear as someone hands you a tab. “Sophia” would lead you down the same road, convincing you to spend too much time at a laser filled rave, while also maintaining a little cheesy Uffie flair in its references to Yaeji, Sophie and herself over its runtime.
Sunshine Factory works better the more uptempo it is. It’s then unfortunate that the album ends on a cooldown with its very last track. “Crowdsurfinginyoursheets” features the autotuned Uffie of old, singing and mumbling verses like a ghostly malfunctioning robot over an icy, glossy hip-hop beat. It’s not even that the autotune is that bad - it just feels like all the energy that was building up over the album just dissipates.
Closer aside, Sunshine Factory begs you to enjoy a full day and night in the embrace of its ultraviolet glow. It wants you to get up and dance, to make the most of a beach-filled slushie-laden day. But it also wants you blissed out in a warehouse underneath the strobe lights, and it manages to check off both these boxes with relative ease. Sunshine Factory passes inspection just fine under the management of Uffie.
