Childhood Swing

bass music/squelchy r&b abstractions

At first glance, you’re a little worried, because the title seems like a cheap nostalgia ploy and the sound is clearly in the Mount Kimbie/early James Blake vein. But while pleasant overall, it’s also got its share of noise and abrasion, and its structures tend to sidestep the obvious payoffs (but aren’t difficult just for the sake of it). Lots of hazy neon synth glow, slow jam vibes, shredded vocals. But also some good brooding and oppressiveness.

FCC clean (instrumental)

RIYL: Mount Kimbie, Silkie, James Blake singles, Pariah, Lapalux, etc

1. rain, rising droning synth bass, sample asking when a cyborg becomes a machine. then synth bubbles and crunching stomps. then rising synth squiggles. finally, heavy stuttering crunchy drum machines, trappy snares and long cymbal rolls, ghostly/warbling/glitchy synth lines flit in and out. flickers out in fuzz. 3:13
2. loping drums (lightly filtered), spacey bright bells, moog flutters. quiet wordless backup vox. stronger undulating moog later. pleasant dreamy sketch. 2:48
3. bright synth streaks, slightly plaintive synth squiggles, strings (koto?), glitchy synth flutters. lo-fi heavy drum machines and slow rolling bassline come in, more abstracted r&b synth melody. slowly escalating small scale drama. 4:54
4. reverby synth swirls, spacey shiny notes. growly midrange synth and a touch of slow jam guitar. sweetness gets cut by clanky lo-fi machine stomp. later, guitar plucks come back, with rising synths. beat drops out, synths scale back, get glitchy, occasional synth string accents, withholds the drop you expect and slowly spools some percussion back in at the end. 3:42
5. rising high end gives way to mellow pads and thin synth horns. beat hiccups in, synths glitch out, coalesces into deep 808 southern hip-hop low end and ‘10 post-dubstep synth colors. nice restrained drop in the middle. gradually falls apart for the last couple min instead of soaring like you’d expect, ends in murk and a chirp, excellent move. abstract soft-focus trunk rattler. 5:17
6. heavy 4/4 techno beat slowly decays to a less straight-forward rhythm as atmosphere and twangy synth line rise up. bells (maybe toy piano?) come in, synths sour a bit, things pick up again. has that background vocoder been there the whole time? does another slow fall apart to the finish line, less prolonged than #5. 4:25

recommended: 5, 4, 6, 3, any