It’s no new recipe to mix chillll indie-folk with electronica. It’s been done before, and well, by well and many an artist, but usually by relegating the synth to drum & bass, all vocals layered and thoughtfully, thickly arranged (with maximum singalongedness in mind) and with rhythm guitars fingerpluck’d or metronimically strum’d, any leads taking a wee, e’r-tasteful solo here & yon. This guit-fiddle exploration, and a more sincere vocal execution, is where Pleasure Systems adds to the dialogue, big-time.
Clarke Sondermann’s axe-use spans a wide range of genres, from Sea & Cake and Minus the Bear jazziness to an almost Slint-like angularity, whilst still keeping with indie-folksy prescription clean amplification. Maybe Papa M’s “Live from a Shark Cage” would be a more apt reference here? On top of this, sporadic field recordings add yet another element of diversity I don’t see often. The vocals aren’t meek by default, nor crooning, but a hazy, nomadic presence between the two, which fits well with said guitar/synth/arrangement chemistry.
Being from Olympia, CS will undoubtedly carry the weight of comparisons to the PNW sincerity of Phil Elverum and the honest/raw aesthetics of K-Recs, and that’s a fairly good place to be, right? Having been acquainted with Antiquated Future for some years now, I think I’m ready to drink their kool-aid, cz I really appreciate the plethora of sub-genres they promote along “left-field folk” lines, even though I usually don’t dig it that much, these days. Thanks for bringing me back around AF!
https://antiquatedfuture.bandcamp.com/album/antumbra-pull
and/or
https://pleasuresystems.bandcamp.com/
-- Jacob An Kittenplan
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