ARTIST: Baths
TITLE: Cerulean
LABEL: Anticon Records
GENRE: Electronic
BITRATE: 197kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 43m total
RELEASE DATE: 2010-06-22
RIP DATE: 2010-07-22
Track List
----------
1. Apologetic Shoulder Blades 2:29
2. Lovely Bloodflow 3:35
3. Maximalist 3:19
4. (heart) 3:17
5. Aminals 3:18
6. Rafting Starlit Everglades 3:52
7. Hall 3:31
8. You're My Excuse To Travel 3:34
9. Rain Smell 4:23
10. Indoorsy 2:44
11. Plea 4:15
12. Departure 4:49
Release Notes:
http://www.myspace.com/bathsmusic
NOTE: Here's the CD version of this album. This shit is WAYYYY to good to only
have a -(WEB)- version of this thing out there. An excellent excellent album
indeed.
Pitchfork review:
Is there too much of a good thing going on in Los Angeles right now? Considering
how instrumental Flying Lotus has been in building a scene of likeminded
beatmakers, it was a bit jarring when he admitted to Pitchfork that "a lot of
halfway kids, come out here, kids who started making beats six months ago,
thinking they can get on stage because their drums are off." It's possible that
sort of people he might be talking about would share a similar profile to Will
Wiesenfeld: 21 years old, hailing from a sleepy, suburban outpost like
Chatsworth, and employing non-quantized drumbeats to... gah, make love songs.
But Wiesenfeld's C.V. checks out: despite his age, he's a veteran, previously
working in the classically-informed but unclassifiable [Post-Foetus] before
being invited by Daedalus to open for a Destroy L.A. show featuring FlyLo and
Nosaj Thing. It was there that Baths was born, and with Cerulean, he places
himself as something of the pop voice that the L.A. beathead scene never
realized it needed.
Wiesenfeld reacted negatively on his MySpace at this site's use of the word
"blunted" to describe "Maximalist", and I can understand where he's coming from.
After all, his live videos on Yours Truly prove that this is music that's
physically demanding to compose and perform, requiring deep concentration and
focus. It's not a stretch to liken Baths to any number of beat-minded
chillwavers, but the crucial difference is that where Toro Y Moi or Washed Out
might let their sampled textures go slack to create a beanbag-ready laidback
vibe, Baths' debut, Cerulean, is more suited to the weight bench. These beats
have muscle. "Maximalist", for example, hits hard, but its force is drawn from
sheer density. The track begins as a woozy wave before a low tide ushers in a
Books-like sample stating, "It takes a lot of courage to go out there and
radiate your essence." These are big feelings Wiesenfeld is trying to capture.
Cerulean has clear influences, but it also has its own point of view. It would
probably be overload if the lyrics matched the density of the music, but the
themes in Cerulean are pretty simple-- the desire for human connection and
occasionally ("Indoorsy") a retreat from it. Wiesenfeld is the kind of artist
who would write a Latin-tinged song about forbidden love that would show up on
your iPod as "?". And as much as the front-and-center emotionalism on the album
threatens to collapse, the record comes unhinged only once, on "You're My Excuse
to Travel", when matter-of-fact lyrics ("I love you enough to drive like an hour
from wherever I am to be with you") filtered through a fork-in-socket vocal
performance that recalls an electrified Passion Pit.
The sturdiest melody belongs to "Plea", and while the plea itself is a basic
desire-- "Please tell me you need me"-- there's something deeper going on. It's
addressed to a male figure, and Wiesenfeld lives in the battleground of
Proposition 8, so the line, "We're still not valid," lends a crushing blow and
possibly gives a new layer of meaning to "?", where the lovers are on the lam
because what they're doing is "wrong." But as with Franz Ferdinand's "Michael"
or Bloc Party's "I Still Remember", it shouldn't be applauded simply because
it's addressing the difficulty of gay relationships in what's otherwise a
sexually blank scene. It should be applauded because it's a fantastic song.
When talking to Pitchfork earlier this year, Wiesenfeld was sheepish about the
genesis of his stage name-- he just likes baths. But it's a thread that runs
throughout Cerulean, trying to find an escape while remaining down to earth,
searching for something magical in our day-to-day lives. Some find it in a
drink; some find it in nature. Others will find it in Cerulean.