fantastic franz! we have to wörk together for one track

Television

03 ALCOBA AZUL

Chillwave never died. It just made some new friends. 

"Track Your Mind" the first track on the Yeehai EP, from the laconic Jack Chosef, who's provided drums for Sean Nicholas Savage's live shows, opens with a manipulated vocal sample that could intro an experimental club track à la Night Slugs or a towering Kanyeeseque hip-hop construction. Instead, in drops the half-tempo bass kicks and portentous synths favored by meticulous 80s revivalists, the sorts that dream of a neon video-game Miami (Chosef says Yeehai is "inspired by girls and cars") or are aficionados of Italian giallo soundtracks and John Carpenter's self-penned scores. But "Track Your Mind" could also be the sound of, for example, Pye Corner Audio's alternate history technological fantasies. 

The song is all those things. And yet: it's distinctively Chillwave; it has the same air of nostalgia and naivety, a carefree spirit, dreamy and kind-hearted. While many producers would be tempted to accentuate the icy cool of the drums by focusing on dark en vogue textures, Chosef makes his choices at a tangent: the insistent, melancholy 'oohoos' of, you guessed it "Oohoo", the immaculate chimes of "Golden Princess". the echoing keys of "Cubing", and the daintily twinkling synths of the title track.

That's not to say that these guileless sonic choices mean Yeehai isn't original or sensuous. The heavy synth washes on the second half of "Golden Princess" are dreamy, but also deep, inviting, enveloping; the heaving switch mid-way through "Baby" nearly ripples through the listener's body. Chosef says the EP was recorded (with help from Touchy Mob) in the summer "in my bed under black clouds and a sprite wodka in my hand." That describes the process as well as the result: pensive, slighty tipsy, evoking sunshowers as much as summer"

Jack Chosef - Oohoo

ART OF NOISE - MOMENTS IN LOVE [ALBUM VERSION]

In his typically laconic, incisive manner, Jack Chosef says that Water&Fear was “influenced by the panorama function of my smartphone, motorbikes & landscapes.” The idea of Smartphone Panorama music really captures what separates the EP's drum-centered sound from its Motorik antecedents – while that propulsive motion supposedly invoked a smooth ride on the autobahn, a relentless progression into the future, Water&Fear sounds a lot like an impromptu panorama shot taken from the road – extended, flowing, but jaggedly glitch-stitched together where the turbulence of the journey disrupts the technological illusion of faultless continuity. That jagged quality is provided by the agitated chopped and pitch-shifted vocals, which, previously only a background effect, now take a prominent role – an addition which dramatically expands Chosef's powers of song construction.

If the styles of 'Krautrock' highlighted by the British music press allegedly put the strangeness of West Germany's 'economic miracle' into sound, then Water&Fear is a kind of post-industrial update to them. Not that this is gloomy or pedantically conceptual music – the tone is of amiable curiosity in the face of one's own pervasive anxiety: “Hard to Be,” which sounds like a theme from the soundtrack of a Giallo film set on a space station, “is about missing a person while standing beside that person,” while the wavy title track meditates on the curious surge of sweat that comes with an inconsequential visit to a roller coaster. Other highlights include the broken cassette deck Disco of “Rational” and the exceedingly catchy “My Fault,” where thick buzzy synth chords interplay with the bass line's churning bubble underneath a yelped chant of self-castigation:“It's always my fault, oh yeah!”

Jack Chosef's background as a drummer continues to show through his music and the focus on rhythm is both what allows Chosef to remain untethered to any particular genre, and what allows it to linger on worry without being pulled under: it cuts to the simple truth that as long as there's a beat, you're alive.

Buy CD on Bandcamp

Jack Chosef - Water&fear

Bravado

Remix of "Birke" by BRIE taken from the album BREI
https://kitchenlegrecordsberlin.bandcamp.com/album/brie-brei

oh so dark

Franz Klommer

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