Memory Tapes – Seek Magic
New Jersey’s Dayve Hawk comes under many recent guises. Also known as Weird Tapes and Memory Cassette he has been setting about the cognoscenti with abandon, providing du jour, lo-fi fuzz and ambient electronica all the while. Combining his passions as Memory Tapes, Seek Magic proves a winning synergy.
From the Cocteau Twins-like, dreamy sway of album opener ‘Swimming Field’ to the wistful and psychedelic, keyboard bliss of ‘Green Knight’, to the squelch-y synths and laser FX of the Italo-disco themed ‘Stop Talking’, it is clear that Hawk, along with The XX, is blurring all the right boundaries. Not convinced? Try CFCF and Air France as exhibits B and C on the increasingly excellent Acephale label.
Seek Magic’s hindquarters take it easy, showcasing the best of Hawk’s deft reverb skills on the mumbling electronic indie of ‘Plain Material’, a trick with a legacy, permeating and perverting the ambient album closer ‘Run Out’.
But Seek Magic is all about ‘Bicycle’, a case of magic found. Hawk’s masterpiece is part Alan Braxe Balearic-chorus and part Passion Pit space-pop, as well as combining a haunting bass line with New Order-like nonchalance. Its pulsing tempo change, along with another found in ‘Stop Talking’, are as euphoric as 2009 is going to get.