Review Summary: How it would sound if Real Estate started incorporating shoegaze.
The trick with writing more accessible, benign shades of rock music is, simultaneously, its end-goal: for it to be appreciable both in the background and foreground; for it to stimulate equally, though perhaps in different ways, on the first listen as well as the 10th. This is precisely the aim of singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Jay Som, who single-handedly performs each note on her debut LP,
Turn Into. For reference, My Bloody Valentine, Beach House, Tame Impala (save for
Currents, of course), A Sunny Day In Glasgow and even early Mac Demarco are all excellent examples of mild, alternative rock/pop bands that have been able to deftly achieve this delicate balance. In her first attempt to emulate the successes of these artists and artists like them, she employs a dream-pop and shoegaze tinged approach to indie-rock, spearheaded by subdued vocals and understated songwriting, to mixed results.
The best trait that
Turn Into has going for it is undoubtedly just how lovely it sounds; Som certainly has the background-listening side of things accounted for. And, by in large, the word 'lovely' is not meant to be applied to the character of the music, but to its sonics. The guitars are truly the highlight here, and sound incredibly rich throughout, ranging from warm, fuzzy, shoegaze-y ooze, to Mac Demarco-esque tones that have been taken a couple of notches further -- a wise choice considering how trite this aesthetic has become over the past few years. And while her vocal's are never truly front-and-centre, there are a handful of beautiful, soft, soaring cooing passages. To top things off, the recording quality is crisp and clean, and the overall production quality is spot-on. Compositionally, however, this album is somewhat of a different story.
The album kicks off on a particularly weak note with the beginning of 'Peach Boy,' whose painfully simple and sugary main riff is passed from guitar to synthesizer, repeated ad nauseam. Thankfully some wobbling synths save the track from complete ruin in the final movement. It's also worth mentioning that the mostly interesting synthesizers are completely jettisoned from here on out, for some reason. Regardless, the following track, 'Ghost,' does a better job of offering more interesting ideas while simultaneously varying them more frequently -- it even goes off on a satisfyingly dissonant tangent in its centre. Track six, 'Unlimited Touch,' effectively demonstrates everything this album has going for it: breezy, dreamy guitars, concise songwriting, and some of Som's bravest and most successful vocals. However, soon thereafter, the final two cuts, 'SLOW' and 'Turn Into', demonstrate just the opposite, featuring hoary melodic tropes, mediocre singing and cliché lyrics.
Without delving into the particulars of each and every track here,
Turn Into generally ranges from incredibly dull and under-stimulating in its compositional simplicity -- especially when there is little tonal tinkering at play -- to delightfully head-nod amd space-out inducing. The frequency to which you experience one or the other will likely depend on your affinity for this mild-mannered sort of rock. It should be said that Som can be very engaging during the more colourful lead-guitar sections, but these are unfortunately too few and far between. As far as the actual songwriting goes, there's not much here to write home about
: the lyrics are, more often than not, disappointingly equivocal upon close inspection, which most won't bother to do considering the uninspired vocals that deliver them. In the end, despite pulling a number of different influences together, Jay Som ends up sounding a lot like if Real Estate switched to a female vocalist, started incorporating shoegaze, and just,
chilled-out, man. It's somewhat interesting, but mostly, it's just middling. Undoubtedly, many will flock to this album nonetheless -- and hey, that's cool, too: enjoy your background music.
