STEP INTO THE OCEAN, reviewed by Erik Dionne of Dog Army
Erik was kind enough to write a long-form review of my second album. He doesn’t have a blog of his own, so I’m publishing it here for y’all’s reading enjoyment (and my own flattery).
The album is an artform unto itself and stands alongside other longform art–the novel, the film, the 10-episode season, or the 10-season series–as powerful and weighty, though, requiring some dedication from both artist and audience. In a world where it is easy to perceive the length of a second as changing–becoming more valuable, demanding each second must be rich with content and emotional stimulation–the album is an undertaking that music artists may find to be fruitless, unsustainable, or even a kind of monkey’s paw (you have to let go of it if you want to persist). Despite this, Kid Lightbulbs damns the sentiment that instant-gratification is the only remaining realm for listeners. In his album, STEP INTO THE OCEAN, he takes the listener on a hyper-dynamic sprawl through indie, rock, industrial, and genre-shedding emotional soundscapes.
The album begins with a minimalist whisper, “this isn’t what I wanted”–musical or confessional, there’s no way to know yet, but the stillness and restraint chills the listener with solemnity, and we have stopped what we are doing–and we are now listening. What follows is a slow crescendo, a slow-motion spilling of information and confession, paralleling the music that begins to pound and swell to craft a track that avalanches far from where it began.
I focus on this track because the dynamics of the opening track are never lost throughout the entire album. But the album does not follow the formula of a crescendo. It always keeps us guessing, and we’re most often guessing wrongly. Where you think a song is ending, an electronic yet warm beat or blazing guitar riff fills the fade, and pulls us along like a sonic undertow into the next section of the track or a new song entirely, without ever breaking a sonic feed. This is “streaming” in the old sense of a constant flow of–yes, I am aware–water. It never stops moving–whether dripping, trickling, pouring, or the churning blast from a wave–we are submerged into the next second of the album with no thought of returning to shore, and that is one of the most powerful achievements of this album: we are constantly moving into the next second and segment, until the coda, without realizing exactly how we got there, but realizing we have moved, and moved a great distance; over what spans, it is difficult to recall. So we listen again.
The album, technically, is quite impeccably produced. The electronic drums are noticeably electronic, but so appropriately electronic, and never losing their energized and emotional impact. They drive forward with lovely, organic swells, ticks, or booms. There is never a disparity between elements–guitars, keys, synths, samples, and who-knows-what-elses all flow and dance together seamlessly to form moments of divine lightness, as in the breakdown with beautiful female vocals in “trendsetters,” or the following brutal pounding distortion and cathartis of “digression (this is so familiar).” While hypnotized, shocked, or deep in some kind of unassignable flow, we’re never discomfited–we are constantly immersed, exactly as Kid Lightbulbs directs us to be.
It’s this dynamic polarity that amazes the listener, but it’s the absolute cohesion–from beginning to end–that mystifies the reflective listener and defines the experience. Each track could be played on its own and enjoyed, but to be honest, I have yet to actually listen to fewer than three simultaneous tracks at a time–the stream is so seamless that I could not even know when to pause between tracks–and I don’t want to.
The length of a second may be more valuable than ever. But it takes a wholly modern album like STEP INTO THE OCEAN by Kid Lightbulbs to remind us that a second in time truly is more valuable than ever, but that our short-form content is offering fleeting bursts of emotional responses which are vapid and cheap, and are so often lost to oblivion moments after experiencing them. Through this album, Kid Lightbulbs reminds us: that every moment can be rich with feeling and meaning, and when delivered through an album’s length of heartfelt dedication and passion, those cumulative moments create an unforgettable experience and a profound work of art to say aloud, “the album will not die.”
