Not even half a year after the release of his debut album »Bad Vibes«, Shlohmo has taken the next step and released his EP, »Vacation«. A vacation from bad moods, dark melodies and gloomy atmospheres – that’s what the EP seems to be to Shlohmo. From the musical perspective, it’s his usual kind of sound-mix that’s vital to »Vacation«: first of all, there’s the turbid drum-frame; in it, one can hear pinheads jingling and jangling, boxes of thumbtacks are being shaken, while the bass underneath gurgles softly. Secondly, there are the synths: in most cases, they carry static noise and they slightly whisper – either way, they are always harmonizing and hold a key for quite some time. Thirdly, there’s always a random instrument or a vocal snippet pepping up the tracks. The distorted guitar and the squeeking vocals in the opener sound the least good, they’re not much more than annoying and somewhat pointless. After that, however, you’ll get Shlohmo in his best form: On »Wen Uuuu« you’ll find gloomy ghost voices lingering in the background, while in the front, there’s a delicate little voice striding through the track. When you only have three new tracks, the best one is allowed to be at the end. The guitars on »Rained The Whole Time« sound as if they were recorded right in the middle of a warm summer rain in New Orleans. Shlohmo is still at his best when he’s got the blues. He shouldn’t be allowed another holiday, which is probably exactly what the remixers thought, who all drive the happy-go-lucky mood away. Airhead comes along with a bass-barrel crushing vocal snippets. Salva takes »Wen Uuuu« to the club, where the track simply looses control, and after Nicolas Jaar’s fiddling with »Rained The Whole Time«, it doesn’t sound like a veranda in N’awlins anymore, but like a wooden hut standing in the pouring rain in the forest of fables.
Vacation EP
