Music review: Pacify your fears with Washed Out & Baths

For every nameless fear there’s a chillwave band to soothe your specific nerves and bring you back to yourself. It is, after all, the primary function of the movement to generate calm—the post-noughties mythmaking, the euphoria of Arab Spring, and the paranoia that terrorism will rear back its ugly head to drown the world in war, are part and parcel of the fiber of daily life of those who grew up post-9/11.

Consider Ernest Greene, performing as his musical alter ego Washed Out (just like NIN is Trent Reznor and friends) who writes and produces gorgeous and lilting music awash in both analog instruments and a fair amount of synths. His melding of computer-generated melodies with guitar accents won for him a break in 2011: Washed Out’s song "Feel It All Around" was picked as the theme music for the comedy TV show “Portlandia.” Signing to iconic label Sub Pop soon followed. His latest album, “Paracosm,” is full of optimism and truth; both qualities attributed to him having moved to the pastoral Athens, Georgia.

Also consider the Los Angeles-based Baths. The project of classically-trained musician Will Wiesenfeld, this duo (often joined by Morgan Greenwood) uses a lot of tech to convey both tranquillity and chaos. In fact their first album “Cerulean” is often refered to as the “happy” LP, where as the second titled “Obsidian” was obviously made under gloomy, sad skies.

Intastella Burst HK (with Fred Perry Phils) brought both chillwave acts to the Alpha Tents in Makati last March 6.

It seemed apt that the dreamy warblings of Washed Out be preceded by the digital chirps and croons of Baths. Before both American groups played, though, we were welcomed by birds of prey.

Kaapin is two dudes based in Cebu, transplanted from their native Cagayan De Oro, who share a love for what they call “electric noisewave and shamanic vibes” or simply experimental indie electronica. That night they also incorporated a floor tom, a cymbal, and a megaphone to their electronic squawks, howls, and sustained stretches of notes.  

Painted in neon bands and both wearing elaborate owl masks that drape down to their necks they put the audience in a state of trance that calls to mind everything from good performance art, shamanic theatricality, and echoes of The Doors.  

I askrf if their body paint is hypoallergenic and their faces widened in surprise. They’ve never even considered it and now think they should wash their faces and arms post-haste. Playing on both visual tone and sonic emotion Kaapin, for me, was the dark horse surprise of the night, who moved delightfully through their EP with songs like “Freedom” and  the rousingly gloomy “Movements.”

The Alpha Tents venue is not, far from the term, an actual tarp and steel structure. Rather, it’s a function hall that sits on the top floor of the Alphalands mall at the intersection of EDSA and Pasong Tamo Ave. You can see the flyover to Taft and Alabang from there and witness the city shut down as the traffic dwindles.

I could relate to the ingenuity and surprising musicality of Baths as a purely tech-driven outfit using laptops, synths, and a small battalion of mixing tools with rows upon rows of knobs. The fact that Wiesenfeld and Greenwood often went into freeform riffing that recalled the best impromptu solos of jazz was both impressive and very unique. Who knew static and noise could convey such stories? Who knew the dance and electronic aesthetic could still yield some genuine surprises? Such brave explorations for Wiesenfeld, who is proficient in guitar, contra bass, and viola, having trained in music since he was four years old.

Opening with the driving “Lovely Bloodflow” from the “Cerulean” LP, Eisenfeld at one point stopped and apologized to the crowd, as parts of a later song mysteriously cut out.

“We have a lot of tech,” Wiesenfeld jokingly quipped, “so sometimes we have tech problems.”

No matter, the dark and foreboding “Miasma Sky” swept us back into the chillwave landscape and “No Eyes” (or a heavier, more extemporaneous version thereof) closed Baths’ show with the voice of Wiesenfeld trailing delayed, distorted notes in the air.

By comparison, Washed Out’s version of chillwave is drowsy, distorted, and ponderous like someone treading underneath a clear body of water, enjoying both nakedness and the sun.

Singer, songwriter, and mostly bedroom-producer turned darling to critics, Ernest Greene was already on many a fans’ radar with his early “DIY from my house” project Lee Weather – almost a carbon copy of Washed Out that was noisy, computerized, and with guitars just a bit faster. Another previous project was called Bedroom, something he worked on with some pals from Columbia, South Carolina, that eventually yielded a few dance music songs. The Bedroom moniker is an apt one, then.

Washed Out’s first EP, “Life of Leisure,” came out in mid-2009 (later released on vinyl in October), then came a limited-edition, cassette-only release, of another EP “High Times.” The success of “Feel It All Around” and signing to Sub Pop, the LP “Within and Without” gave Greene the momentum he always wanted. Recorded in Atlanta with producer Ben Allen (the guy who also did knob work for Animal Collective and Deerhunter) Greene then put his back into the grind and toured the album for a few years.

A tad burned out and wanting to relax, Greene decided he had to move out of Atlanta and relocated to a more rural setting. He picked Athens. The “Paracosm” LP, with its melodic mumbles and obscurantist drawls, is heavily influenced by being in an isolated environment simply making music.

We’re the lucky winners in Greene’s decision to go rural.

Still, I think that musically, I have more in common with Baths’ range of digital, prolix rants done in the key of noise. Washed Out’s sanguine positivity (while being closer to most people’s idea of what chillwave is), confuses me with its blend of blues, dreamy folksiness, and punctuations of feel-good hippie head boppers that sometimes sound to me like TC commercial pablum (albeit energetic pablum).

The opening “It All Feels Right” was to me just tepid; an undecided sketch without much hook or flesh. I did like the romantic, almost sensual “Weightless” (some hipsters can feel this eroticism, I think, and want to slow dance with their significant other or hug it out while said atmosphere fills the air) that reminded me of very strong Memory Tapes tracks. There’s too much mid-tempo here though and it has a tendency, to my ears, to flatline at the oddest instances. There’s a certain genius to this though, since the details are important in these circumstances, and maybe I just can’t pick them out yet.

When the encore came about Greene and Co played another version of “All I Know” and this was both a revelation and a joy that made me smile and made everyone else sway like plants in a Sargasso sea, caught up in the slow, lazy revolutions and undulations of Washed Out’s music.

Nameless fears, all of ye are pronounced exorcised. Thanks, Messrs Wiesenfeld and Greene. — VC, GMA News