Cheap Thrills - October 2022

This month: bitpop, emo, ambient, and more!

Halloween is right around the corner, and while I could've gone for a more uniform "spooky" aesthetic to suit the holiday, I didn't want to railroad myself into a single theme. Variety is the spice of life, especially when it comes to name-your-price releases on Bandcamp! There's something for everybody out there, and this continues to be true this month with the following Cheap Thrills. 

As usual, the heavier stuff is at the bottom - big ups to Invisible Oranges for their continued support!

Mild Sorrow Integrated - arbol.

Before this EP, Mild Sorrow Integrated was an artist who primarily crafted the sort of noisy ambient popularized by Tim Hecker, Ben Frost, and Rafael Anton Irisarri, but arbol. is meant to be a clean break from that legacy and an attempt to show their "love for melody and textures" in electronic music. As a first foray into more melodic territory, arbol. easily succeeds with its chipper electro-pop that is sure to bring a smile to any listener's face. Whimsical synth melodies skip and gambol to fluttering electro-acoustic taps and snaps, giving the impression of pixelated pastoral scene. Simply put, this album is a delight, and I look forward to see where Mild Sorrow Integrated will take this sound in the future.

Skimp - Hey Alright

I've always been a sucker for a good volume spike, especially ones where the chords themselves seem imbued with the energy of a foot stomping on a distortion pedal and the vocals are subsequently buried in the mix, e.g. Codeine's "Loss Leader" and Have a Nice Life's "Earthmover". While Skimp isn't exactly going for the same sort of cosmic bummer as those two bands, their take on emo is loud and satisfying, trading glacial buildups for big, brash rock n' roll riffs. The vocals are tender and sentimental, seldom rising above a croon even when songs make the leap from from clean guitar arpeggios to bombastic power chords that positively crackle with energy. This is still an emo EP through and through, but one that manages to feel strangely upbeat, even fun. 

Dag Rosenqvist - elephant

Lush ambient drone filled with a sense of longing, with repeated motifs like snatches of half-remembered dreams. elephant alternates between—and occasionally blends—⁠two primary styles: The first is defined by sizzling walls of static backed by rumbling sub-bass and simple glitch percussion, while the second has a more delicate touch, rich with piano, chimes, and strings. The interplay is designed to mimic the emotional turbulence of mourning, and elephant thus uses these extremes to devastating effect. Take the transition from "Porcelain" to "Come Silence", where shocking bursts of noise choke and sting like a sandstorm before dropping away to reveal gentle woodwinds and horns that soothe away the previous track's sting, or even the relative simplicity of "Whatever It Takes To Disappear", which deftly blends these two modes to create a straightfoward but breathtaking crescendo.

Want something heavier? Then head over to Invisible Oranges for my roundup of name-your-price metal and punk releases! Crusty death metal, hard-rockin’ hardcore, necromantic black thrash, and more await your tender ears.