Let’s get a little abrasive. Maybe it’s the part of me that was buying skilled on iTunes in middle school, but to this day there’s still something about a caustic synth lead that hits my brain in all the right ways. It’s part of what’s kept me so engaged with the post-hyperpop/experimental pop space as a whole, the willingness to engage in these massive feeling, at times chaotic sound design cues. That little bit of chaos has this appeal I simply can’t shake, and this week we’ve been blessed with a prime example of it, courtesy of fawn burke.
pay2play may come off initially as misleading simple with it’s intro comprising of nothing but a single phasing synth, but it doesn’t take very long for that illusion to be shattered. As soon as the vocals hit we drop the basic sounds for a 4 on the floor kick and a bass line that is constantly morphing in no less that 2 ways at any given moment between how it melodically jumps around and how it’s distortion effect continuously modulated. Throughout all that the track is grounded by breathy vocals, all of which creates this mile a minute look into LA’s cutthroat music scene that gives the track its name. It’s fast, it’s complex, and when the drop comes around it’s dare I say old school in how it approaches everything like a dubstep track I would’ve bought on iTunes 13 years ago. The vocals are cut up against an intense, grinding synth patch that feels right out of a “how to produce like virtual riot in Xfer Serum” tutorial uploaded to YouTube a decade ago, and I absolutely adore it. Every second of it is this blend of old and new, perfectly walking a balance to create something distinctly original.
Maybe at the end of the day I’m just a tad nostalgic, but I think this track falls into a really important niche in the current scene. What genre is it? Great question, hell if I know, genres are essentially dead as far as I’m concerned, but it’s a specific breed of experimental post-hyperpop electronic music that never ceases to stick itself in my head for prolonged periods of time, which must be a good sign. The last few fawn burke releases have all hit that vibe to perfection, so with pay2play adding another to the list, it’d be an understatement to say that I’m excited for what she’s got coming up next.
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