Single Reviews: chocofriendz / i-fls

chocofriendz - "goodbye"

(2017 Self-Released)

Today's doubleheader review catches up with two artists who are no strangers to this blog. Though they may hail from opposing lateral hemispheres of the globe, chocofriendz and i-fls are equally cloaked in digital mystery, coating their instrumentals in emotional longing, woozy synths, and the .jpeg artifacts of DeviantArt illustrations long-forgotten. 

The alphabetical former of the pair, chocofriendz turns in his most texturally enticing effort yet in the form of "goodbye", a track that culls back the New England bedroom popster's ambient keyboard pads in favor of acoustic guitar and fluttering melodica. In 2016, I imagined choco's oddly capitalized hi ANGEL LP as a dream set in a suburban simulacrum. Sustained chords stood still as mown grass collected dew overnight. Lyrical references to cartoon characters and heroes of children's literature loomed like ping-pong ball eyes, peeking out from inside a shadowy shrub as if to assert their magical-realist presence in the dreamer's mind. It wasn't the cool on the other side of the pillow. It was the placidity flowing through the down -- the threadcount -- and transferring into your skull via osmosis. 

Choco's new stuff isn't as philosophically complex as what's in his back catalog, but it doesn't need to be. On "goodbye", the composition speaks for itself. The notes land with more grit than they used to, plucked steel strings flopping against snares and errant keys. This track's the swamp behind the woods that surround hi ANGEL's suburbs. Here, what seem to be modular synths suck sloppily against the mud like shoes with extra grip. They croak like frogs in urgent need for flies. Choco is frugally cosplaying as Animal Collective circa Hollinndagain, muffling the harsher edges with quilted fabrics. He roughs it, setting up his blanket fort on your living room carpet, inviting you beneath the lean-to to roast riffs over a tin-can flame. You don't need an eclipse or cliffside view to get in touch with nature, you learn. You can let nature into your home -- let it ransack your fridge and crash on the futon. Flick the light and wish the track good night. It's too subtle to take in all at once -- this is the kind of work you need to sleep on, only to wake to an epiphany.

i-fls - no start point / earphone song

(2017 Self-Released)

Japanese producer i-fls dabbles in more polished textures than those that Choco employs, but his latest single release titled no start point / earphone song proves that the unlikely duo draw from the same wellspring of sentiment. Following the release of the project's twentieth album(!), the three-song record delivers a visual and aural aesthetic that i-fls fans will find familiar, but always welcome: layers of filmy Garageband synths creep across the surface of shuffling house rhythms, crisp and capacious as the blue photos that frame each cover artwork but raw as the ballpoint doodles pasted onto them.

Bonus cut "earphone song" is the strongest showing here. It's the most moderately-paced of the bunch, bouncing on quiet kicks and claves as a melody slowly-but-steadily finds footing while navigating the beat. Imagine ascending a shopping mall's massive escalator -- no top floor in sight -- surrounded by glass walls on either side. It's snowing, but the flakes melt against the ground, and somehow despite precipitation there's not a cloud in the sky. The atmosphere just erupts with flakes that dot the surface like cotton nubbles in a baby blue sweater. And outside the mall with plastic bags hanging from your forearm you absentmindedly twist the knit lumps in your pullover.

And your cheeks are red and cold.

Review: i-fls - "wasted"

i-fls - wasted
(2017 Self-Released)

Whatever i-fls has wasted, it's not time. By my own count, wasted is the twentieth album released by the Japanese solo outfit over the course of the past half-decade. That sort of rapid-fire output can be understandably daunting for first-time listeners -- awash in dreamy shades of blue and strewn with nearly-identical sketches of the project's stoic avatar, i-fls' Bandcamp page doesn't exactly lay out a welcome mat, signifying a proper entry into its body of work. It instead feels more akin to picking the lock of a virtual filing cabinet, only to discover a row of manila envelopes organizing a corporation's annual reports. Marked with identical Helvetica letterheads, each stapled document tells the story of year in its own language. Anyone can mull over statistics, but it takes an accountant's eye to arrange them into a narrative.

Like a connoisseur of Grateful Dead bootlegs or Guided by Voices records, I sift through i-fls' cabinet of files with an auditor's scrutiny. Though their tracks come uniformly clad in a haze of Garageband synths and faint percussion, it's the sense of familiarity I have with the project's music that helps me appreciate the subtlety in each new release. 

wasted, for example, is i-fls' most goth effort to date. Often melodies are more implied than performed, taking the form of the sugar-glazed shoegazery that might frost a Slowdive tune or a late-80s Cocteau Twins endeavor. Early standout "useless places" grooves alongside a sweeping three-note hook that wouldn't feel out of place woven into The Cure's Disintegration. Trashed snare drums and clattering hi-hats tame the gelatinous synth arrangements, keeping them stable enough for your mind to bounce on.

"kinako 2 b" makes a rare use of acoustic guitar, which plucks out a few clumsy riffs before dissolving into the usual i-fls recipe: throbbing keyboard pads, a minimal house groove, and wintry chimes. The raw buzz of steel strings is jarring against the album's fuzzy, subdued tones. Though only lasting for about 10 seconds, it's perhaps wasted's most memorable moment.

These moments of oddity concealed beneath a cloak of J-Pop ambience are what keep me coming back to i-fls' discography time and time again. That's not to say that their traditional tracks aren't worth checking out, though. "soutarou" fleshes out its five-minute span with PC Music percussion that forms carbonation bubbles on the surface of tangy synth stabs. Closer "like you" reaffirms the project's core strengths, lacing reverby drum hit into chillwave eyelets.

wasted is yet another solid addition to an extensive back catalogue of releases. It may not bring radical change to the table, but the album makes up for a lack of novelty with the same swirling dream-pop I've come to know and love. If you liked the Aria Rostami record I reviewed last week, you'll love this. 

Review: i-fls - "nightmare is not decade"

i-fls - nightmare is not decade

(2016 Self-Released)

Like a sentence poorly deciphered by Google Translate or a Diet Coke's lingering tinniness, i-fls' transient synth-pop jingles re-create fond adolescent memories that alight sweetly on one's tongue with a tinge of bitter artificiality. The latest installment in the Japanese solo project's 19 album discography, nightmare is not decade, is structurally its most polished effort to date, yet the record is still texturally awash in the same spin cycle load of translucent keyboard pads and subterranean four-on-the-floor kicks employed in previous releases. It's somewhat of a stretch to deem this murky blend of faded electronic pulses "lo-fi", but there is certainly an intentionally muffled tone that pervades nightmare, one that recalls the bruised trickle of ambient drum 'n bass that seeped from the freckled speakers of the block-shaped TV set in my bedroom while I spent grade-school evenings weaving through Super Monkey Ball mazes. Each tune is decked out in memory-foam armor, the impact of their percussive hits cushioned by a wall of warm bass.

It's this conflicting sense of nostalgia that makes me imagine i-fls hovering over Ziploc'ed peanut butter sandwiches at a cafeteria lunch table with American Football's Mike Kinsella and Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian, reflecting on formative Christmas mornings and knees scraped on November playground gravel. Standout track "Erudite Tanida" is dusted with the lunch's residual WonderBread crumbs, these flecks of distortion worming their way into a bubbly house rhythm, phantasmal melodies spread across its surface with a plastic knife. "Witch House Maki" remains at home sealed in twist-tied plastic, its crisscrossing chiptune melodies as crusty as the heel of a loaf. Even the uptempo shoegaze groove of "Sanrio" feels doughier than the plastic Eurobeat that inspired it.

i-fls' ethereal soundscapes are incidental music for the dreams that squeeze between your morning alarm and its snooze-buttoned successor. They are, at times, tough to grasp or remember, but conceal nuggets of great profundity.