Ben Bondy and Mister Water Wet's Kevin debut is a featherlight, slow-motion pop daydream, assembled from tape-dubbed instrumental snatches, field recordings and softly-sung vocals. RIYL Movietone, claire rousay, more eaze, Ulla.
Like a bedside dream diary, 'Laundry' is an oblique, surreal set of ideas and familiarities that Bondy and Iggy Romeau carefully build into charmingly lo-fi proper songs. Anyone who's heard either artist's prior canon will have a good starting point, but while 'Laundry' uses ambient textures, it's not an ambient album by any means. 'cloud cover' starts with an evocative environmental recording of crickets and undulating pads, but tinny acoustic guitar plucks usher in a whisper-quiet vocal that helps propel the track into an inverted pop realm. Both artists clearly share a love of romantic, low-key indie rock - elements we've heard seep into recent material from claire rousay - but they don't seem too interested in making high budget bangers. This suite is soft focus from beginning to end: the guitars are asymmetrical somehow, giving the casual vocal more room to shimmer and the subdued electronic elements space to wash to and fro.
There's a link to be made between Kevin's low-key, horn-addled meanderings and the more pastoral end of the slowcore scene - particularly Bristol's perennially underrated Movietone - but we can also hear parallels between these tracks and Vincent Gallo's timeless 'Recordings Of Music For Film'. Just flip over to 'selfish replacement (w foamy sax)', with its tangled riffs and anguished woodwind wafts. Even the electronic sounds are understated on this one, reduced to percussive rattles that remind us of the music's provenance. There's little bluster, just raw emotion that's woven through Bondy and Romeau's swooning, ferric atmosphere.
View more
Back in stock.
Out of Stock
Ben Bondy and Mister Water Wet's Kevin debut is a featherlight, slow-motion pop daydream, assembled from tape-dubbed instrumental snatches, field recordings and softly-sung vocals. RIYL Movietone, claire rousay, more eaze, Ulla.
Like a bedside dream diary, 'Laundry' is an oblique, surreal set of ideas and familiarities that Bondy and Iggy Romeau carefully build into charmingly lo-fi proper songs. Anyone who's heard either artist's prior canon will have a good starting point, but while 'Laundry' uses ambient textures, it's not an ambient album by any means. 'cloud cover' starts with an evocative environmental recording of crickets and undulating pads, but tinny acoustic guitar plucks usher in a whisper-quiet vocal that helps propel the track into an inverted pop realm. Both artists clearly share a love of romantic, low-key indie rock - elements we've heard seep into recent material from claire rousay - but they don't seem too interested in making high budget bangers. This suite is soft focus from beginning to end: the guitars are asymmetrical somehow, giving the casual vocal more room to shimmer and the subdued electronic elements space to wash to and fro.
There's a link to be made between Kevin's low-key, horn-addled meanderings and the more pastoral end of the slowcore scene - particularly Bristol's perennially underrated Movietone - but we can also hear parallels between these tracks and Vincent Gallo's timeless 'Recordings Of Music For Film'. Just flip over to 'selfish replacement (w foamy sax)', with its tangled riffs and anguished woodwind wafts. Even the electronic sounds are understated on this one, reduced to percussive rattles that remind us of the music's provenance. There's little bluster, just raw emotion that's woven through Bondy and Romeau's swooning, ferric atmosphere.