Review Summary: Profoundly basic
Watching his live performances, Ben Böhmer seems genuinely committed to a type of cookie cutter emotional house music most people are only willing to engage with ironically. Yet it’s this complete lack of irony which makes this album at times a pleasant indulgence. It’s hard to overstate the basicness and lack of irony at play here. I mean this man has a live performance of him on an air balloon over Cappadocia. This man sings along to ‘Waterfalls’ by TLC with his entire crew before concerts to get in the zone. On this album he unironically follows up a track called ‘Rain’ with one called ‘The Sun’. This a level of cliche that’s impossible to parody. Yet, I don’t turn it off. Instead I oscillate between wanting to viciously mock the man and genuinely enjoying his music. Between hate listening and bopping along.
I have to admit though, I’m a little jealous of Ben’s complete lack of irony. He’s making the music he loves, and he’s not ashamed of it. Youtube comments under his live performances evidence people’s profound experiences with his music. Who am I to tell them otherwise? This is the soundtrack to the Instagram reels of holiday highlights that girl from your high school posts with #thankful. This is ‘finding yourself while backpacking in Thailand’ music. It’s the soundtrack to the type of basicness I look down on but secretly envy.
Ben doesn’t skip any EDM cliches here. Every song is absolutely caked in reverb. The chord schemes are meant to evoke that familiar ‘profound’ sound. There’s thumpy kicks driving sidechain compression, pulsing bass sounds, warm and washed out synths and plenty of kick - snap and stomp - clap patterns. At times he sound like a home brand Kiasmos, at others like a dollar store Jamie XX. Yet when it works, it's hard not to enjoy it.
Two songs on here are particularly unsubtle: the aforementioned ‘Rain’ and ‘The Sun’. These lay the ‘profound’ sound on incredibly thick and the lyrics are equally heavy handed. On ‘Rain’: “We keep waking up with different weekend lovers / We brush them under the rug”, “We keep dancing / In the rain”. On ‘The Sun’: “I’m scared of saying I’m not OK / But I’m holding on / Through a perfect storm / Clouds will pass and float along / Until I feel the sun”.
Ben’s genuineness is somewhat disarming and even when it’s not, it’s at least funny. For what it is, the album is well crafted. Yet I can't help but feel that his previous releases had more memorable tracks and the where the first half of the album has some solid tracks, the second half dips in quality. But overall, as a bit of a guilty indulgence, it's still enjoyable.
