Working under the name Craft Spells, Stockton, Calif.'s Justin Vallesteros makes music for bedsitters who dream about being social. Though often addressed to a love interest either real or imagined, Idle Labor is above all a lonely album that rarely betrays its origin as a solo project. Sonically it recalls Wild Nothing it the way it mines a large swath of 1980s synth pop, but its clear emotional tenor gives it a distinguishing perspective and personality.
Idle Labor exists in a time frame best described by the title of its ebullient centerpiece-- "After the Moment". These are sketches of romantic problems and solutions with the wounds still fresh and the thoughts uncensored. Taken as a whole, it could be read as a narrative following Vallesteros from heartbreak to infatuation and back, a few months' worth of romantic uncertainty boiled down to a taut and hooky album.
In a maundering yearn somewhere between Jens Lekman and Ian Curtis, Vallesteros introduces himself as a lovelorn melodramatist over sunstroked, near-Balearic pop. But as the narrative begins to hint at physical contact, the music works in lockstep, and Vallestreros builds tracks more as a dance producer than a singer-songwriter. And that's where he hits his stride-- while his vocals remain a central fixture, the post-punk mordancy is softened by locomotive arrangements that stack synth pads, ringing guitar, and primitive drum programming.
"Party Talk" starts a mid-album mini-suite with Vallesteros as a nebbishy Woody Allen character trying to decode a mutual romantic connection from casual conversation. But he leaps forward during the upbeat "From the Morning Heat", and by the fantastic morning-after celebration "After the Moment", something has apparently clicked; Vallesteros repeats the chorus as if he knows it's the best he's written.
The emotional high is predictably short-lived, and even within its brief half-hour runtime, more than a few of the melodies take detours and left turns. "The Fog Rose High" has the feel of a gothier Beach Fossils, while the anodyne dream-pop scruff of "You Should Close the Door" could have been a Radio Dept. B-side. But as with so many bedroom auteurs' debuts, it's tough to separate the creation from the creator, and Idle Labor shows the promise of a precocious songwriter who isn't claiming to have anything totally figured out just yet.

Craft Spells -  After the Moment

HOMESHAKE (all caps, all the time) will release the new album In the Shower on October 7, 2014.


HOMESHAKE // "Making A Fool Of You" (single)

Chasing Control

Tame Impala - The Moment - Cover

Miles We Roll

From Veckatimest (2009)
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/veckatimest/id314837656

Veckatimest

Ready, Able

People

Homeshake's 3rd LP "Fresh Air" comes out February 3rd on Sinderlyn.

Pre-Order physical copy here: www.omnianmusicgroup.com/products/fresh-air

Pre-Order digital here: hyperurl.co/55yrdq

Fresh Air

Homeshake - Khmlwugh (Official Single)

Mac Demarco - Still Beating (House of Strombo Session)

Written & Produced - Dan Arnes
Drums - Yoni David
Noise - Adam Kastin
Mixed & Mastered - Dan Arnes & Yoni David at Big Snow Buffalo Lodge
American Buffalo Recordings 0012

Seventeen

Tame Impala - Prototype (OutKast)

	
The Latest & Greatest From Across The Hemispheres


Tame Impala - Prototype (OutKast)

From Go to Whoa Blog