For those of you who were craving more music from Washed Out, your wait is over, kind of… depending on how resourceful you are. Back in late August, Pitchfork made a mention of, and posted a new song from, a new release coming out in cassette form on Mirror Universe Tapes. “High Times” was released in a very limited run of 200 cassette tapes, which quickly sold out.
Thanks to a tip off from my dearest Joel… and our indispensable mp3 community which provides us with all of our pre-release and hard to find music, I’m currently listening to this new release in all of it’s lo-fi compressed to hell glory.
Although I’ve only gotten one listen in… here’s my first impression:
Side A starts out with “Belong” which was posted in Pitchfork’s initial blurb about the upcoming release. The abrupt start gives you a feeling, true to cassette tape memories, like this recording was caught midway into the song while quickly loading a tape into the deck to catch a radio performance. I know a lot of you probably don’t have those memories… but I can’t tell you how many mix tapes I had where the first 10 seconds of the song got caught off.
Outside of that, Side A can be summed up as this: A holiday retreat in 1980 on an Italian beach. I can see Giorgio Moroder in his aviators, mustache, and a speedo.
Side B takes on a rather unexpected, yet completely natural turn into retro lounge funk stylings that are a tell tale sign of maturity, flexibility, and maturity from such a young person. “Yeah” might as well be a long lost except from a 70’s blaxploitation film. Just as abruptly as the Side A begins, Side B ends with this epic dose of funk… mid song.
This kid is such a tease… and well… don’t we all like the chase?
I love Giorgio Moroder
How can you not love the electro equivalent of Mario?!
Yo I saw washed out play in atlanta 10/07/09. I mean, yeah his shit is awesome – as is chillwave. And he’s from Perry / Macon / Peach County GA and yeah he rocks. No argument here… but didn’t he make “rolling stone” magazine in summer 2009??? just seems like this is tardy 4 the party.
I am not claiming to be making any breaking news, I’m just posting music that I like, regardless of how old or new it is. Also as far as I can tell there wasn’t much out there with regards to this newest tape release.
i’m late to this as well, but after hearing it this morning on the way in to work, i see what all the fuss is about. it was a great four song set: washed out, le coup, julian casablanca and pavement.
i like the new design by the way. i look at atahualpa as well, but went another direction. seems like everyone has the itch to redesign these days.