Supersex 420 x Tendencies
Split EP

2014

 

 

 

 

The concept of a split EP is easily explained, but constantly surprising when the aural effects simply work to the involved artists’ advantage as the waves reach the recpipient’s synapses and connect them anew. Basically, artists don’t collaborate on a split EP, but are given a certain topic, timbre or aesthetic viewpoint by the label and then try to come up with their very own interpretation, without knowing about each other’s progress or angle. Easy peasy. But I wonder how connected to each other the artists of this review’s Split EP really are, as the coherence remains a strikingly dominant force throughout the EP. Enter the womanizer of the millennium スーパーセックス永遠にSupersex420 who may or may not be based in Tachikawa, Japan, and thiazide theorist Tendencies who come up with a seven-track EP of immersive delight, paradisiac synth ctenidiums and smmmexy announcers. The ever-important topics are love and those bodily things that happen when you love someone, but these seemingly mundane/profane themes shouldn’t keep you from enjoying this free EP, as it is magnanimously filled with braidings of vocals, glitters, brass blebs and not a care in the world. Released for free – I have to repeat it again: free – on AMDISCS in December 2014 and downloadable at the AMDISCS Webshop, you are immediately entering an auroral world of carefreeness and colorful harmonies. This review is put into the Ambient section – must be a joke, eh? – due to the lush backing synths and glistening glissando. In reality, all intrinsic escapades of both artists occur in the name of Funk, but heck, that’s no disadvantage at all. Enter the mighty Split EP whose name could have been Hit EP as well, I wouldn’t have raised a brow.

 

Yeah! serves as the neonescent gateway to Supersex420’s spiky synth-supercharged Vaporwave world and clocks in at a mere two minutes, but dem minutes are gold. Lascivious female service announcements (“You are now listening to Supersex420”) are grafted onto a Filter House mélange which itself is constructed in medias res and therefore starts all of a sudden as if you're late to an already bustling party. Dropping argentine pianos, ”what goes around comes around” chants of wisdom (they are very important, but more about that in the final paragraph!), cheeky laughter, saccharine payback reminders and retrojected galactosamines in-between the catchy anhydride, this is a post-Disco technodrome. To say it with a rhyme: If every payback were as pink, the world'd be bright and you the kink. Or king. Meanwhile, So Much Love On My Mind serves as the neonescent gateway to Supersex420’s spiky synth-supercharged Vaporwave world. While no-one can be entirely sure that the producer really has just love on his mind, the transformation from the ebullient titration of glamorous emotions into cascading MIDI stabs and luminous flares of mauve and magenta is flawlessly achieved. Better still: from the first hyper-glistening chord punctilio, the sophomore track’s euphonious fusillade never lets the listener go. Super-delightful Funk guitars, brass eruptions and bucolic drums make for a superb insouciance, no cheap tricks attached. Heartfelt R’n’B vocals, a cowbell galore as well as the archetypal slowed-down appendix round off a hymnic helix.

 

The adjacent Fast Lane, while slower than the second track, still holds many a tachycardia-causing vesicle – or vehicle – within its superstructure. Amethystine bass guitars, “fast lane” vocals and aureate horns in tandem with synthetic lavabos create a Funk fest that is cleverly looped and mega-polished. With a runtime of just two minutes, this piece begs for your attention ad infinitum, so triggering the repeat button prevents your life from being cauterized and calcined. 私の 愛My Love then resurrects the amorous leitmotif of Supersex420’s transcendental being and pours it into an already bubbling cataract of emerald synth protuberances, glacial glissando globs and snake charmer saxes as perceived through cut-off frequency moirés before the full frequency range becomes available to the listener yet again. Those bass guitars function as aerose droplets in a vivacious cesspool of aggrandized femme fatale vox and staggering synths whose powerful pizzazz let the good mood prosper for eternity. Up next is the cajoling coruscation of 太陽のドレスFigure, a viscoelastic hexangular caproic corker presented in 4/4 time, and what a coincidence, the baes are already enjoying themselves in the autochthonous Vaporwave leeway, and so the cosmic Moog splinters become entangled with a stacked overflow of polyphonic hush hush vocals, viridian profusions and chlorotic aftertastes.

 

While ダン スフロアLate Nights features counting coquettes situated in thickly wadded bolsters of kick drum-accompanied, funk guitar-laden rotations of alkaloidal flowerage complete with weirdly twisted contretemps, one thought arises just in time: eyes and ears are still ringing due to the supercharged flamboyancy that has just occurred, but they cannot elbow away the fact that this is a Split EP after all, and so there is one artist left to absorb, distill and plasticize: Tendencies, of course! The submission is called This Is The Moment, a grand finale that augments the endogenic palette with vocoded vestibules, backing choirs and toasted sermons. Although this wondrous endpoint feels a tad more nocturnal and slightly more contemplative and withdrawn – whatever that means in the context of this Split EP – expect anything but tristesse. One cannot believe that the EP is over after roundabout 20 minutes, but this is an EP after all, so it cannot run on all cylinders for a three-digit amount of minutes. 

 

A spermatocystic superfluid filled with wine and women, Supersex420 x Tendencies are indeed on the fast lane with their Split EP, and while it is not entirely clear (to me at least) how mutual said EP really is and if there are collaborative efforts on a per-song basis or not, AMDISCS has released another sparkler where the lilac horizon merges with the glaucous checkerboard plateau one is driving along. In lieu of futurism, both artists adore a comparatively retrogressive approach. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, for Vaporwave loves the 80’s more than any other decade. It is still eminently refreshing to see such a cohesive effort, and it is seemingly done with ease, although the various filters, melodies, samples, styles and that supersexy announcer cannot be found on each and every corner, quite literally so! While I have shortly outlined my disappointment in regard to the duration, I am more bewildered about myself than let down by the runtime: it’s an EP, stupid! But one that is aglow, awash with technicolor, ablaze with percolating pericarps that melted due to the aggrandized levels of euphony and wonder. Supersex 420 x Tendencies’ Split EP breathes and lives that Saturday night aura, but believe it or not, this is not a hastily produced soulless convulsion. I know that it’s hard to attribute heartfelt wisdom and higher intelligence to House music in general and Vaporwave in particular despite my ongoing attempt to do just that, but both artists have a fitting answer for naysayers, weirdos and keyhole pervs which shall end this review in a pretentious way: “what goes around comes around.”

 

Further listening and reading:

 

Ambient Review 408: Supersex 420 x Tendencies – Split EP (2014). Originally published on Jan. 14, 2015 at AmbientExotica.com.