Sunny

Hippie Sabotage
The Sunny Album (Deluxe Edition)
iHipHop Distribution, 2014

I don’t really know how to describe Hippie Sabotage. Perhaps you’ve heard their Internet vial bootlegs of Tove Lo’s “Stay High” and Lana Del Rey’s “West Coast”; if so, you’d kind of get the gist of the kind of genre (?) they’ve continued to develop in The Sunny Album. One can expect continuation of their initial deep, slow electro/synth/bass sound. Very solid album, music similar to other deep house and electronic artists that have amassed followers via the web: XXYYXX, Mr. Carmack, Falcons, Kaytranada, a little bit of Flume.

FCC warning: 3

***01. (2:55) Title track. Heavy synth, heavy bass; warped/quiet vox take a backseat to the music. Starts slow, builds up with piano and electric guitar sampling.
***02. (5:25) Deep male vox, incredibly catchy. Underscored by a looped percussive beat that transitions between sounding a drummer’s boy-esque riff or low, speaker shaking bass. The last thirty seconds are instrumental gold, with erratic synth playing over a deep “bum-bum-bum”.
*03. (4:00) This entire track is composed of varying degrees of bass laid atop one another. Catchy, but not good for radio play—sped up, high pitched female vox (at the best part of the song!) contribute the first FCC warning of the album: “I said fuck you”
04. (3:13) Hits the ground running with erratic synth + bass. Confident song, lots of loud, clipped bass/hi-hat (you know exactly when and to what beat you bop your head along to).
*05. (1:10) Opens sounding like a Super Mario game; builds up fast and quickly turns into a mishmash of video game noises. Sounds really interesting; unfortunately pretty short.
06. (3:52) Sounds like two really good songs collided to make a disorienting final track. Fan of the vox—especially when a gritty, lo-fi filter sneaks in on that last minute—but the backing electronic layers are constantly conflicting with themselves. Too much mismatched noise.
07. (2:49) Slower, completely instrumental. Transitions between fuzzy, minimal synth and some deeeeeeep bass. Definitely XXYYXX-influenced.
08. (3:36) Spacey, fuzzy, lazy synth. Vocals are echoey and incoherent, most melancholy-sounding song of the bunch.
*09. (2:31) Fun stuff with the harmonizing vocals (high pitched/fast + deeper/slow are mixed in together to create a melodic back and forth. Synth + bass follow accordingly. v nice).
**10. (3:49) ~Electrifying~ synth loops leave you wanting to dance (or bop along). Instrumental except for an unintelligible voice they they use after a drop for a sweeeet build up about two minutes in. Immediately makes me think of Flume.
*11. (2:05) Sounds like remixed elevator music with surprisingly gooood results: very sweet, very light tune. Worth playing.
*12. (3:27) Whirring synths, light bleeps and bloops, “wub-wub-wubs”, alien noises.
**13. (3:42) Heavyyyyy. Driven by a deep buzz and slow, thumping bass. Hi-hats and warped instrumental loops (piano, guitar) come out for various discordant solos.
*14. (4:10) Dramatic, with choral harmonies that sound like something out of the Lord of the Rings score. Monotone, fuzzy male vox throughout; synth excitedly jumps and beeps around it.
15. (3:10) Nice harp/strings (?) sample saves this track from being industrial electronic overload. Repetitive, chilled-out, closes with unexpected lazy trumpet(?) solo.
***16. (4:01) Opens with spacey/alien/sci-fi beeps and vinyl fuzz. Samples some brass (trumpet?), strings and filtered vox across the track. Weird, heavy, and absolutely excellent.
**17. (2:56) More sampling, this time what sounds like lazy electric guitar. Synth mimics/mirrors the guitar melody, lots of slow crashing cymbals + sped up hi-hat.
**18. (3:56) Intense—like, action-movie-car-chase intense. There’s this pervasive “clink-ahh” noise, deep/low bass, lots of in and out whirring bass. Also really reminiscent of Flume.