Dayve Hawk is a stay at home dad living in Jersey and he is the most fully-realized one-man operation in music to date. Most one-man operations rely on a certain minimalism to get by, and usually to great effect. There is nothing minimal about Hawk's Memory Tapes. Instead, Hawk composes widescreen technicolor dance anthems that combined 80's new wave with modern electronica. It all sounds slightly like a 15-piece Notwist, but with bigger hair and more brightly-colored neon leg warmers. It is unabashedly over the top at times, like the jazz hands inspiring climax of the amazing "Bicycle," but it consistently manages to stir the soul and shake your ass. I had a kind of love/I don't know relationship with his work this year, but in the end I gave myself up to his sweaty sweetly comforting 80s inspired work. I am naming him my artist to watch because any single musician that can make this kind of work (and seriously only a band like Arcade Fire with a girls choir playing dance songs could make a record like this) is massively talented and I can't wait to hear what he does next.
Listen to Bicycle here
Listen to Green Knight Here
0 comments:
Post a Comment