Memory Tapes – Seek Magic
September 29th, 2009
Sincerely Yours
Score: 8.0

If there was a breakout subgenre of 2009, the award would have to go to the chillwave/glo-fi movement. Of course, if you seriously asked me what the definition of the genre is, I probably couldn’t tell you, and I suspect most indie-music bloggers would have a bit of trouble pinning it down. So I decided the easiest way to figure out whether or not to tag the latest lo-fi, synth-based bands with the chillwave label was by determining whether or not they sound like Memory Tapes.

While Seek Magic is Memory Tapes’ debut album, Dayve Hawke (formerly of Hail Social) has been releasing web singles and EPs under the Weird Tapes and Memory Cassette aliases for a while, before combining them to create Memory Tapes. And as the name suggests, Seek Magic is a blend of Memory Cassette’s ethereal, wistful sound and Weird Tapes’ more electro leanings, with an end result that lands halfway between Cut Copy and Boards Of Canada.

Memory Tapes’ debut album probably deserves to be looked at as a singular work independent of any greater significance, but it’s almost impossible to ignore its importance to the entire chillwave genre. Before Seek Magic, chillwave was strictly a singles and EPs affair. The individual songs were fantastic, able to catapult the listener into his or her favorite memories of summers past. But every successful genre in music today has needed some landmark, genre-defining album to create a context for the latecomers to use as a starting point. As the first chillwave band to release a full-length album, Dayve Hawke had to deal with this probably unfair pressure from critics as he simply tried to make the best 40 minutes of continuous music possible.

For anyone who’d heard his earlier material, there was no denying that Hawke had promise, but there was still the question of whether it was possible to keep this summery, blissed out feeling up for an entire full-length without boring the listener. Thankfully, the album more than delivers. Opening track ‘Swimming Field’ starts us off slowly, easing the listener into the stream of chilled synths building slightly at the end. Following it is ‘Bicycle’, perhaps the most pop-oriented track on the album with its disco stylings and fantastic Cure-ish guitars.

Even the instrumentals ‘Pink Stones’ and ‘Run Out’ serve as perfect complements to the major numbers, rather than mere distractions. While ‘Pink Stones’ seems almost frantic when compared to the rest of the album, with its skipping beats that somehow twist out a beautiful pattern leading right into ‘Stop Talking’, ‘Run Out’ is the very definition of chillwave, with its ‘lay back, close your eyes, and soak up some sun’ ethos along with the relaxed, reflective melody drifting out to sea to close the album.

Of course, ‘Plain Material’ is the clear standout, with its fuzzy guitars, repeated drumbeat, and interjection of otherworldly cries that seem ripped straight from an early M83 album. But it’s the lyrics, clearer and more intelligible here than anywhere else on the album, that let us know that Hawke has something to actually tell us, and his warped, androgynous vocals aren’t just another instrument. But if ‘Plain Material’ is the standout, the 7-minute behemoth ‘Stop Talking’ is the clear centerpiece of the album. Here, Hawke sings “I said this is the last time/one more time, baby, one more time”, pleading with himself to keep the good times going as long as possible. And after a short lull, Hawke brings it with a one minute and a half of breathtaking trembling percussion beneath a choir of euphoric tones.

Seek Magic clearly succeeds in putting both Memory Tapes and chillwave on the map and should help all of us survive the cold months ahead as we dream of sandy beaches, piña coladas, and sunsets. And judging Memory Tape’s post-Magic output (the ambient-styled ‘Treeship’, the unsettling ‘Walk Me Home’), Hawke has plenty of ideas left and his best is probably yet to come.

Shane Lawless

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