The term “odyssey” gets thrown around a lot these days, or at least I throw it around a lot when I’m talking about driving to soccer practice or soccer games or basically anything soccer related. Let me start over. The term “odyssey” gets thrown around a lot in my house these days, regardless of how far I have to go, because isn’t just wandering out of your house every once in a while an adventure? If he’s anything like me (and who’s to say he is?), Luurel Varas of Estonia sure thinks so, probably, because he chops up a bunch of stuff he finds all across his everyday life and turns it into an odyssey for the ears, a broken-beat odyssey, a sampledelic instro-hip hop affair that just invites itself over, makes itself comfortable on your couch (or in your cassette player), and plows right into that odyssey everybody keeps talking about and promising and writing incessantly about on Cassette Gods. Luurel Varas delivers. “Leisure Time” is a blast of spring breeze (which of course I’m just getting around to on the cusp of winter), refreshing and invigorating, a vaporous entity that envelopes you with its warm rhythms and it’s lush melodies and whisks you away on the odyssey of its choosing, a magic voyage to some unknown land where the only outcome is good and the only treasure you find is marshmallows. These are the exploits of pure whimsy, and joy is in the air and in the water and in the food and in your blood. And now that same joy is in my house, and in my car, and I’m off to soccer practice full of joy and whimsy, and the odyssey of my life is before me, soundtracked by Luural Varas. “Leisure Time” is welcome here any time, doesn’t matter if I’m chilled out or ready for action. The odyssey always awaits.
Luurel Varas
Crash Symbols
--Ryan Masteller
Posts
