Zeon Light is a SERIOUSLY WEIRDO Swedish label, putting out rad ambient/drone/leftfieldfolk/electropop-anomalies and/or dancinesses for the small-batch’d masses. A quick look at their release-roster touts recordings by Oliwa (Argentina), Arc Light (USA) & Linear Bells (France), with the majority of other artists, including Cheap Imitation, being neighboring Nordic folx, like Flourescent Heights, who are ganska jätte bra, if I (and google translate) do inappropriately say so, ourselves!
So, Cheap Imitation; what a wild ride! Maybe the label of “electro-anti-pop” may suit this duet best? I didn’t see “omnichord” listed in their instrumental arsenal, but a good portion of their songs involve the expertly unapologetic (yet tasteful, mind you!) tweaking of tempo AND pulse, in tandem, which is part & parcel to the great Om’s charm. Maybe I’m a conspiracy theorist here? Anyhoo…
Cheap Imitation’s eponymous vignette of slippery ditties is a rrrad stream of conscious meditation on the boundaries between meditative-new-age mantra and ever-shifting stream-of-conscious-electro-pop posit. There are seVEREly fucked with field recordings (and Swedish moviemusic from 1937), as well as haunted drum machines, ambient guitar swells, & ghostly synths that stagger to & fro. There may be a sliiiight turn off for some with the hushed vocals that live between-the-notes (think a rreeaallyy sleepy Kim Gordon), but it rreeaallyy makes sense for them to be this way, as they avoid being a focal point, eschewing the gravity of melody in favor of texture and further movement and gelling of said warbling synthesizer loops & drum machines (& omnichord, right?!)
All in all, this is fairly spectacular and well, well worth repeated listens in a variety of environs, though it’d be a living hell for anyone, say, someone who was trying to study while I played it on the living room stereo. :/
Headphones highly recommended, but not necessary for a good time here. What a mix!
https://zeonlight.bandcamp.com/album/cheap-imitation
--Jacob An Kittenplan
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