Memory Tapes – Player Piano

Rating:

It seems like Dayve Hawk has finally worked it out. After releasing music under bands by the names of Memory Cassette and Weird Tapes, somewhere around 2009 he decided to combine the names of the two and settled upon his latest, Memory Tapes. He then went on to make his first noteworth,y as well as full length album, in Seek Magic. Now, two years later Hawk is back once again, ready to present his chillwave once more, hoping to garner as much praise as before.

The first real song on this album, “Wait in the Dark,” starts with some bubbly synthesizer, accompanied by the high-pitched vocals of Hawk himself and methodic drum beats, chugging along. Interesting enough, the song plugs on, lack of many changes at all until the bridge portion, where the elements of the song cut out for a moment, then resurge with a slightly different, yet vaguely the same sound. What seemed like bouncy synthesizer in the beginning of the track, feels a bit flat when the end is reached, simply because it has been repeated so many times. Even though this song sounds good upon the few first listens, providing a pretty decent head bobbing beat, this lack of variety seems a bad sign for the album to come.

“Today is Our Life” follows suit of “Wait in the Dark,” in the use of only three main elements: synth, vocals, and drums, which appears to be the only combination Hawk is going for on this album (he later adds some guitar). While more enjoyable to listen to the than the first song was; the synthesizer elements are more tolerable, it still doesn’t offer up many decisively alluring elements. The same can be said for the remainder of the album. Each song feels like it will prove interesting and worth repeating, but fizzles out by its end, which is disappointing.

Player Piano is no Seek Magic; and for this reason, it seems as though this album comes across worse, due to the fact that we know what Hawk is capable of. In the end, he has made an album full of songs that I do not feel compelled to listen to again. Whereas Seek Magic all blended into one cohesive piece of indie-dance-electronica, I’m left unable to sink myself into this work, perhaps deterred by the repetition that turns into banality on the scale of an album.