Fans of Toro Y Moi and Washed Out should soak up the sheer synth loveliness of this LA musician's debut album
Hometown: Chatsworth, California.
The lineup: Will Wiesenfeld (vocals, music).
The background: We've had albums-of-the-year lists and ones-that-got-away lists, now we need a list of albums that got left off the albums-we-missed lists. High on such a countdown would surely be Splazsh, an album of "R&B concrete" by London DJ/producer Actress, and Cerulean by a 21-year-old LA musician going by the name of Baths. If you liked the Toro Y Moi album and wanted more of the same, wished that Washed Out had produced a long-player and can't wait for the UK release of the How to Dress Well debut, then Cerulean does the job of all three. It's a record of love, or anti-love, songs with rolling melodies, undulating synths and fuzzy atmospherics a la Causers off This, sung in a haunted, warped soul falsetto a la Tom Krell.
Produced over two intense months in Wiesenfeld's bedroom, Cerulean exists in the same universe as the chillwavers while also being in communicating distance with the satellite worlds of hip-hop, dubstep and extreme electronica (that it is released on the alternative/indie electronic/hip-hop label Anticon speaks volumes). There are moments of such as Maximalist, which hints at Wiesenfeld's experiences as a young gay man ? "It takes a lot of courage to go out there and radiate your essence," declares the sampled voice ? but they are undercut, or rather enhanced, by tough beats and 8-bit keyboard mania. One of the tracks, Indoorsy, has a really poppy melody but it's sung in a weirdly high voice over a mad super-fast skittering rhythm ? it's like Una Paloma Blanca given the once-over by Hudson Mohawke.
Elsewhere, you can't help thinking of Baths ? who uses guitars, bass and keyboards as well as snapping scissors, clicking pens and rustling blankets among other bric-a-brac to create sounds ? as J Dilla playing around with the Pavement and Prince catalogues. Sometimes he comes on too strong with the awkwardness and angularity ? his last project was called Post-Foetus and there's a track on Cerulean called Apologetic Shoulder Blades ? but on LP closer, Departure, Wiesenfeld plays it absolutely straight and creates the most moving piece of music on the album. He's a charismatic fellow: the video to another of his tracks, Stupor, shows just how pervasive Captain Beefheart's influence was in terms of engendering a sense of everyday reality being slightly subverted, and how easy it is to play it daft ? but the test will be whether, on album two, he can seriously pursue this alluring new paradigm: that of the gay R&B loverman mired in glitch.
The buzz: "Cerulean is an album bursting with ideas; a fact worth celebrating regardless of the rough edges" ? Drowned in Sound.
The truth: This Baths will run and run.
Most likely to: Appeal to maximalists.
Least likely to: Appeal to Max Tundra ? he'll be too jealous.
What to buy: Cerulean is available now on anticon.
File next to: How to Dress Well, Chad Valley, Toro Y Moi, Gayngs.
Links: myspace.com/bathsmusic.
Tuesday's new band: Encore.
Cat Power Haylie Duff Talisa Soto Julianne Hough Paula Garcés
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