Denys Parker
Country : USA
Year : 2011
Label : Moodgadget Records
Genre : Electro; Synth Wave; Electro Funk; Dream-Pop; Chillwave
Web Site : 18 Carat Affair at SoundCloud
18 Carat Affair - "Last Night"
18 Carat Affair - "Watching Your Dance"
Chill songs about love and beach. So far so good, but these are not songs, there are short skits and several longer compositions. Oscillating, loop, funky, chill Barry White-esque miniatures from 28 seconds to 3 minutes and 45 seconds compositions - electro melange for lovers. Music creates in me pictures of nightly New York club filled with heart-to-heart rhythm and neon lights, that bring timeless, and many folks slow-moving as one organism. Futuristic-romantic, right. There are just a mere 20 years until 2031. Let's start with things in the album.
The first thing that i want quickly to point: the voice in "Last Night", the final composition, amazing looks like that of Peter Steele, sampling, and much more while I still have to convince myself, that it is his voice itself, or any other but in slow motion, that brought him to the bass heights of the singer of Type O Negative, which unfortunately is no longer among us mortals. However, there you will doesn't hear Type O Negative any longer (which are veeery big) things in this electro, slow motion work. I like this composition - act soothing as hurricane filled with mountain air that invades my lungs and fills them with... life, very dreamy, mellow and enchanting.
One annoying element there is in "Pretty Girls I Don't Know Anymore" and it is slushy vocal in otherwise good new wave-electro-punk-dance experiment, where without slushy voices would be much reasonable despite the duration of 1 minute 22 seconds.
"Bitter Turns To Sugar" is the second in album and it is one of my favorite, sounds like Scritti Politti of tranquilizers with r 'n' b in vocals, rhythm is pure funky electro with chillout synthesizers. And some more light Barry White version and only a minute and close 30 seconds length.
"Women Situation" is a skit-schizophrenic radio station constantly change channels - sounds, phrases, parts of r 'n' b songs, electro, choppy, dissonant.
Electro music has many variants - from short skits, intros during long ambient, drone, chillout compositions and heavy breakcore, eclectic glitch, IDM infusions to dark synth slow motion, dark minimal underwater streams and more, and more. Music of 18 Carat Affair has some of these elements and styles collected in itself, without breakcore curves, drone noise. There is a short chill skits with dose eclecticism, electro-pop candy and a bunch of experimental elements. That saturated the music, like electricity fille electrical bulbs with life. Noncommercial music, well, there is a light commercial tint, but it is not the most important, which creates feelings, emotions, because it is made from such and with a little experimentation with the technique, I'll say. Absorbed in itself, and from the old, big new wave, synth-pop groups - some of a dream atmosphere of the Cocteau Twins, little decayed of pieces vintage Depeche Mode, mild Shriekback melancholy and a bunch of electro, cinematic, retro, filmic components. This is not typical electro album that you hear - there are short stuff, as I mentioned, but nevertheless has many elements and styles of electro music in himself, so as to be interesting for me and to likes me more. Because the limitation in the music does not lead to anything good listener. But let I return to the beginning of the album. One minute "Desire" is positively funky brilliance, summer night mood with a retro disco vocal. As is clear these are compositions and skits for relax - fast, short and useful.
"Miracle Worker" is supine in its tempo, vocal as if a large dose of tranquilizers, trying to escape from themselves and a suitable chillout living aura with bass side. Here already duration has reached two minutes and 22 seconds, somewhere around the average for the album, divided by all compositions here. See "Spector Daydreams" invoke reminiscences of Phil Spector and his electro and wall of oscillation electro cubism.
Pillar of oscillating synth-bass underwater streams through the whole song and slow, blurry trip pace and again short duration of a minute and 31 seconds, like a skit-overture. Shoegaze with glitch and new wave, if you can imagine. And the next "Watching Your Dance" inserted into my mind more dance, despite it's slow pace mood. There have oscillators at the bottom along with the bass line, rhythm is trip-hop, chillwave, and you imagine, that you watch the dance of exquisite dancer - very flexible with almost ephemeral movements, all driven by the sounds of this composition directly in your mind. And undoubtedly my next favorite performance. Appropriate for quiet afternoon of contemplation, and in time for cycling. You know, rhythm merges with your moves, right. Suitable for cyclophrenic replay piece. Try it. Of course if you like downtempo, trip-hop beat and urban keyboards and to ride bicycle round town, then this is your nearly three-minute escape from the material world, except not counting cyclophrenic replay. And I reached the sixth in album "Paid Programming" - paid programming in favor of chillout, downtempo beat, the train leaves, and you should go down after just a minute and 14 seconds, to climb from the station "7PM", is not necessarily to be at the same time, you choose, but now you will travel in the direction of ambient, downtempo, chillwave of this express train or more precisely oxymoron slow-express and then in the half-asleep condition. Down from it you take from outside the station. And in continuation of 28 seconds in your ear you can hear a skit "I Wanna Love U" - someone wants to love you - eclecticism with slow keyboards walking along the scale and sluggish vocal sample.
Ninth "Passion" is a kind of funky Scritti Politti joke-skit out of only a minute and 12 seconds with clap hand effects and forward thinking about the sound at the beginning of album and one-minute "Desire". Electro, post-punk with new wave, chillwave synthesizers miniatures, and funky bass line inlet more new wave feeling.
Thirty-six seconds skit "High Profile" is with a shuffling vocals, delay-ed Barry White over the chill-broken beat rhythm. Something like a gospel with freshly coming out of anesthesia singers.
Skits continue with 51 seconds "L.A.X." and cinematic feeling - for now retro, even of a city of the future. For the next "Pretty Girls I Don't Know Anymore" you can read at the beginning, the same is valid. And for the next eclectic-schizophrenic, slow Bonobo feeling plus retro soul vocal blend "Women Situation" will say the same things which you can read in the beginning. And then it came "Last Night", what a dignified and beautiful closure of "Vintage Romance" thereof.
For her you can see what I wrote at the beginning, but I'll add more and more. This is the most catching composition here in this album, and most fullest describes the album title - with its keyboards as a past era, but sounding modern and club, inly, chill. These keyboards just how back memories. Eh voice, just listen to it and tell me if this is not the voice of Peter Steele (who left us without the time and could do much more good music). Here's another performance with which you can remember about him, nothing that is electro trip. And Peter Steele did doom trips with Type O Negative, he remains timeless classics, but to go back to "Last Night" of 18 Carat Affair.
This is composition, no it's already a part of me - with its retro arcade synth reminiscences of kinematic New York super catching, and again listen the voice, the words become unnecessary, so it is fits here, that you hear it once the rotation of this piece at least 10 times is unavoidable. Swan song of the finest emotions. Some clever folks say that certain sound frequencies acted unconsciously, so in this composition these frequencies are clearly more and saturated subconscious.
Grabbed me and not let me and I turn it cyclophrenic, because it is very good. I have not counted how many times I listen it, but it doesn't matter. Hear it and see if you can stay more than three seconds on the ground. Because of this performance flying highly in the clouds. Said in the best sense with respect to the trip.
Skits, kinematics, chillout, new wave, synth-pop, gently eclecticism, downtempo, anticipated cyclophrenic repeats for now synthesizers in retro, even of ahead in time and many and many more. Not least one magnificent wedged in composition "Last Night", which is what you need to deluge into the colorful world of electro music, unless you live alone with the music of great classical composers, which among other things if they were alive they liked some of stuff in "Vintage Romance". Because of good music stylistic borders are limiting and even non-existent if you ask me.
I will listen to a few dozen times "Last Night", because I can feel it every time more bigger than before.
