Dreamy crystalline melodies that sound like whole lives unfolding in the vapory beachtowns existing only in the most regenerative of daydreams, this blissful release from VIQ is a sparkling example of something that might be called “chillsynth.”
Music, in its best and most rare form, can deposit you somewhere completely different than your dreary surroundings with the deceptive, atomized ease of a Star-Trek teleporter. The opening notes of “Vestige” seem to beckon from the shining coastal mirror-world implied in the cover art, before ocean-deep synth lines drop in, sealing you into this beautiful alternative reality handcrafted by French chillwave artist VIQ.
There’s a quality, effervescent yet melancholy, shared by the beginnings of many of the tracks that feels as mentally restorative as twenty minutes of expert-level meditation. This album combines a multitude of ideas from genres within the ill-defined terrain of “synth-wave” music, but at first glance obvious references are artists like Tycho and M83, who similarly ease all the strain and fervor out of synthesized sounds and are able to create music that sounds organic and half-remembered, instead of meticulously programmed.
Understated, easy drum programming contributes to this overall effect and allows all the focus to remain on the gorgeous synth and occasional guitar production. It’s the music of sailing down the PCH at no more than thirty miles per hour as the liquid sun dips into the ocean, off to illuminate some other world. You can almost imagine someone cursive-singing about a breakup over the instrumental provided by “Illusion,” but the sound design is in itself so nonverbally evocative that lyrics simply aren’t necessary to envision this place he has created and the people who inhabit it. Devotees of the sun falling slowly in and out of casual love affairs in eternal coastal towns built out of driftwood and decorated with treasures scavenged from collapsed empires. Eagle Eyed Tiger delivers a really great guitar performance in the next track, which descends like a tropical depression on the otherwise all-encompassing ease.
The EP closes on two tracks which are dream-pop by way of subtle indie dance, with production that is just ever so slightly more upbeat; just the whiff of a hook, but not enough to disturb the dreamworld you’ve found yourself in. Music like this can soundtrack a life, but it can also help us envision ourselves living precisely the kind of life we want so idyllically soundtracked.
-Winston Mann
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