Chillwave is a natural companion to shoegaze if you think about it. Both genres share the same fuzziness, the same distant, drowning echos, the same viscosity. Chillwave just happens to be slightly more synthetic – you can taste the chemicals that give it its flavour, while shoegaze is much more analogue – more silky. Nonetheless, they go together well. Which is why I don’t feel it is out of character to have a bit of a discussion about Millionyoung here.
Well, not even Millionyoung – just this one song by him. Being a relatively new genre, its proponents are a bit sparse with the albums and so you make do with just a smattering of tracks per artist.
So, yes, the song in question happens to be this tropical midnight number called ‘Feel The Same – it’s all about hollow plinkity-plinks with jingly percussion grated over it. Or that’s how it opens anyway: the parmesan synths tickling the back of your neck like friendly ants. Then something you assume is the bassline owing to its passing resemblance to the rhythm of a ‘regular’ bass guitar honks its lumbering way in offering its squishy brick wall support to the starry voice that’s been murmuring all this while.
It starts to cushion its pulse, showing itself to be more of a beat and less of a bass, and then the song morphs – the first transformation of three – into an unbelievably outer spacey 1980s guitar solo. Soon, this breaks up as well as it changes into a myriad of wah-wahs before the entire track collapses upon itself recapping its entirety in reverse order. By the time you reach the end, you’re right where you began, wondering if you just imagined the entire immobilising interplanetary journey.
PS: Click the image to download the Sunndreamm EP. Click here to download ‘Feel The Same’. Both totes legit.
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