Trey Many
A drummer-turned-booking agent, Trey Many reveals the challenges facing up-and-coming bands.
From the beginning, "Life of Leisure" sends you spinning on a dreamy 80s flashback, with all the appropriate synth and finger snap samples. The dueling synth loops spin and syncopate in discombobulating timing, almost like Steve Reich’s “Piano Phase” where two piano loops step out of synch and bump into each other, realign, and then step out of synch again… it’s kind of like that, only with a smooth and gliding melody and a beat that makes it much more danceable. Every track of "Life of Leisure" is contained within a single aesthetic, which makes it a cohesive and vivid experience. Washed Out’s Ernest Greene has made a strong debut with "Life of Leisure", avoiding the normal spasms of a first-timer. He keeps it low and smooth where it should be in a life of leisure.
"Fun and Laughter's" opener track “Sixteen Asterisk” starts simply, with an acoustic guitar and Powell’s high, easy voice. From the first moment Powell grabs you. Shortly after, the rest of Land of Talk comes tumbling onto the scene. “May You Never” opens as an eerily beautiful and spacey piano/voice duet. The layers of scraping and scratching, and the apparent distance of Powell’s voice and thumping of wood are a perfect windup to the renegade pace of the rest of the track. With only four tracks, this too-short EP has left us eagerly anticipating the next Land of Talk release, "Cloak and Cipher", due August 24th. Meanwhile we’ll happily keep "Fun and Laughter" on repeat.
