Review Summary: “Backesto Park” may be a familiar trip through coffee shop instrumental downtempo, but a sonically varied and good one nonetheless.
Williamson has been a blip in the west coast electronic music scene for a while now, and his newest release is a triumph in composition and melody, although doesn’t differ musically from the rest of the cramped scene. The problem with these types of releases is that they really do sound the same most of the time, and while “Backesto Park” holds some striking tracks, as a whole the record doesn’t stray from the norms of the style. Opener “All Thanks to Paul” isn’t necessarily a good indication of the spots of brilliance to come, sticking to the Tycho-infused idm/downtempo formula with small electronic blips, a leading synth melody and sampled glitch vocals. While eventually transforming into something magnificent and worthwhile, later tracks seem more fresh than the banal opener.
Later, “Fast Moving Shadows” excites, while again not straying from how compositions flow within this style of electronic, the slightly quicker beat and eventual guitar loop melody sound like they were created to coincide over that crisp electronic drum machine as they do. The song is short enough to highlight Williamson’s knack for melody and smart pacing; the track evolves more within it’s under three-minute runtime than most other tracks on the record, while placing a melody so heartbreaking, it’s difficult not to rewind.
While Williamson shows his ability to create well-written tracks, and only a handful of songs are skippable, none are quite as impactful as album highlights “Aspiring Mooncropper Seeks Work” and “Walking Home and Aiming for Light”. The former is simply a remarkable composition and the latter is the biggest standout present, perhaps the strongest song from a songwriting perspective. “Mooncropper” is the most alien on the record, containing spacey synths and glitch clicks that align tremendously, offering a quick atmospheric experience that pulls you in after a lackluster array of downtempo songs that preceded it, the exception being “Walking Home and Aiming for Light”. This track is undeniably gorgeous, containing some of the grooviest melodies, smoothest transitions between looped acoustic riffs and synth lines, plus a dramatic build that feels perfectly paced.
Most songs on “Backesto Park” are inoffensive, tracks 5-8 aren’t necessarily boring, but feel like the same filler found on most other albums in the sub genre. Also, clocking in at 50 minutes, “Backesto Park” could have benefited from cutting tracks like “You Don’t Understand” and over sampled closer “These Broken Day Blues”. Fortunately, despite lack of inventiveness in some areas, Williamson indeed varies his compositions more than the average electronic/post-rock record, allowing it to be a a small standout in an overcrowded genre. Even the less interesting tracks are sonically distinct from the ones before it. The closer, while not particularly motivating, feels almost as though it was written by another artist in the genre. That’s Williamson’s recognizable strength; the ability to write a set of songs that may not always excite, but escape the redundant nature of tracks in this genre by focusing on diverse instrumentation. Considering beautifully arranged songs such as “Protozoan Sunrise”, “Aspiring Mooncropper Seeks Work” and “Walking Home and Aiming for Light”, Williamson proves he is a skilled composer who is far from the skippable chillwave musician that many of his contemporaries often are.
