clothes - clothes

Clothes

Clothes
self-released; 2013

3.8 out of 5

By Ted Rogen

Clothes in a one-man project that recently released its first self-titled full-length album Clothes. This is one of those albums where the artist seems to be well beyond his years. Everything from the lyrics, to the music itself doesn't seem like something a kid who just graduated high school would be able to make. Over the 11 tracks on this album he displays his diversity by coming up with a unique sound for each song but they all seem to stem from the same palette somehow. He mixes organic instrumentation with sampling and electronic components effortlessly while at the same time embraces the lo-fi aesthetic as opposed to letting it become a hindrance (at least most of the time). The album also has an emotional heaviness to it at points such as the piano driven “Inanimate” or the melancholy “Lover.”

The album starts with the sparse “Hazards of Love [1]” which utilizes distant crystallized keys that sound serene as he sings over them. A bit of turbulence is introduced when the bass and distorted lead electric intervene. It created an interesting dichotomy that was intriguing and got my attention. The second song “Everything” does a great job at creating a lo-fi aesthetic and combining it with programming skills that are reminiscent of Dentel. Clothes creates  arpeggiating waves of sound that let me him repeat the phrase “You are everything.” “Never Again” is a good example of a song that could have easily been a song containing just guitar and vocals but instead he flushes the song out with a number of different elements. While some purists may prefer a scaled back approach I feel that he doesn’t stuff too many elements in there that distract from the most important thing, which is the song. Clothes combines an IDM inspired drum beat, with manipulated vocals, samples and guitars that seamlessly blend into the mix. 

While they are more strong songs here, there are also times when Clothes doesn't hit gold. However rarely, the production can take away from the songs. The album starts to also lose a little bit of steam as you get into the final stretch.

Overall, this is a very good album. I can only imagine what this kid might be doing in a couple of years. 

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