Alex Chilltown – Eaten Up By Nothing (Witchgirl Recordings, February 24th, 2017)

Extended Play with four pleasant dreamy bed rock pop songs, married with interesting oblique arrangements, for Alex Chilltown, moniker under which lurks the London-based Josh Esaw.
This new record, the first for the Witchgirl Recordings, continues the exploration of discovered feelings, investigated by means of certain slowcore chillness and cynical lyrics sung in a voice that ranges from the heavenly tones, almost otherworldly, to those bored that seem to describe recalcitrant and fragile emotions cracking under the DIY aesthetics weight. Fluctuating gloomy synths creates a carpet of soft sound evolutions on which hoop reassuring and refined melodies and harmonic developments diluted in feelings that come at times to touch the boundaries of slackness.
If “Untitled” floats carried by hypnotic sounds of condensation and a lethargic voice, “Hollow” refers to more abstract insights of Les Disques du Crepuscule with minimalistic keyboards, that never seems to end, even when the final changes into space radio frequencies.
“Glaze” shines of diaphanous aluminum, the rhythms accelerate moderately and the cymbals are made under a sky created by insistent, pure brand new wave, basslines.
It is an enjoyable E.P., with sounds that reach a kind of oxymoron, like, I mean, gently lo-fi, enveloping music always lurking, ready to kidnap you to carry you into the Twilight Zone, designed and longed from the first note of “Eaten Up By Nothing”.

Rating: 7,5/10

Schoolboy Johnny Duhamel

Pre-order via Witchgirl Recordings