Swell Album: Macajey - Let's Go [electronic / folktronica / chillwave / beats]

Tweet

Estonia-based California native Jeremy Macachor, aka Macajey, has just released his latest record entitled Let's Go. The young solo musician/producer uses his experience as a guitarist and recording/mix engineer to bring us a full sound that is as much organic as it is electronic, tracking live drums, electric guitar, and original vocals (by Elle Leatham and sister, Ashley Macachor) throughout the complex array of digital sonics.

Macajey lists Bonobo, Four Tet, Slow Magic, and Gold Panda as influences, and it's evident in his music, throwing together Slow Magic's energy and danceability, Four Tet's use of organic sounds, the smooth jazziness of Bonobo, and the Gold Panda's glitchy production style. This concoction of musical tendencies allows him to generate a sound of his own that is just as likely to make you hit the dance floor as it is to make you plop down on the couch and trace the imaginary constellations on your ceiling with your eyes.

Stream Macajey's beautifully produced album Let's Go below and follow the link in the Bandcamp player to buy yourself a copy. You can also listen to and download (pay what you want) his two previous EPs here and here.

Just Rolled In: Washed Out - "It All Feels Right" [chillwave / psychedelic / dream pop]

Tweet

Apparently recorded using over 50 instruments and some samples, Washed Out's sophomore album Paracosm (artwork above), which will hit shelves via Sub Pop on August 13, casts us even further away from multi-instrumentalist Ernest Greene's initial lo-fi chillwave arrangements and leads us drifting into a more mesmerizing and complex organic environment.

Paracosm's first single "It All Feels Right" comes to us today just in time for the summer, helping us lose ourselves in its intricate and hypnotic blend of tropical, psychedelic, and spacey melodies. Check out the official lyric video below followed by two hits from his 2011 debut album Within and Without and the fan favorite 2009 single "Feel It All Around".

Just Rolled In: iamforest - "Structures" and "Versions" [electronic / chillwave / ambient pop]

Tweet

Although most artists who have been pigeonholed as "chillwave" by music critics or fans have been trying to avoid and rid themselves of that title due to the ever-growing negative stigma it gained shortly after its birth a few years back, Vancouver's twenty-something producer Luke Hartie, who records as iamforest, proudly dubs his beat-driven ambient electronic project as just that, "chillwave". If you're not aware of what chillwave is, some of the leading pioneers include Neon Indian, Toro Y Moi, and Washed Out.

I wondered why Hartie didn't care to throw his project into that cringe-worthy (to some) genre so easily until I thought, "Maybe it's because he knows that chillwave is only really a dismissed genre title because of the gigantic wave of wannabe laptop musicians that flooded the interwebs with cookie cutter beach-ready, fuzzed out, and sample-driven tracks when the aforementioned artists met success." Luke Hartie is different from these "artists" and he knows it. His idea of chillwave is obviously, and thankfully, and bit unconventional.

While still very "chill", Hartie's music as iamforest isn't typically sample-or-fuzz-heavy, has more hard-hitting beats, incorporates his own airy vocals and smooth guitar work, and he has over ten years' experience making music with a degree in sound engineering to top it off, so unlike most of his chillwave counterparts, he knows what he's doing. If this is what chillwave has become, I won't be too quick to drop the word from my lexicon.

Listen to his outstanding single "Structures" and a song from his recent Driven Out EP, "Versions", below and buy all his music on a pay-what-you-want basis over at his Bandcamp page.