CD Reviews

Memory Tapes | Player Piano

Carpark (2011)

By REYAN ALI | August 3, 2011

2.5 Stars

Dayve Hawk's first record as Memory Tapes, 2009's Seek Magic, came out in the year that the blog-born genre of chillwave became ubiquitous, and Tapes' contribution arrived in the form of downbeat, white-out pop. Still, you could tell by a track like "Graphics" that Hawk was dying to turn up his tempos and spruce up his aesthetic. He's not totally there yet, but Player Piano is still a major step toward melodic bliss. Tinny, lonely keyboards and aching romanticism lead the way for Player Piano's first two tracks, but a minute into "Today Is Our Life" it seems like the dude wants to create a song hopeful enough to end an '80s teen rom-com on a high note. While he oscillates between moods, the cheery portion of "Worries" (where he turns "Heaven is waiting/Heaven is stood outside your door" into something upbeat) seems to set the stage for the third Memory Tapes record. The real weak link is Hawk's airy falsetto, which is too underwhelming for its own good. But give him a hairbrush, a mirror, and another couple of years and we'll see how it sounds then.

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