The nostalgic 80s sound of vaporwave, the nocturnal funk-pop of Nite Jewel, the blissful Balearic songs of the Temper Hut label and the sort of balladry heard between bouts of dimension-crossing depravity at a Twin Peaks bar mix on the second album by US singer and producer JJ Weihl, AKA Discovery Zone.
The interval element is expertly rendered, from Fairlight-style ersatz choral vocals to the identical upward-zooming synth sound utilized by Alice Coltrane on her meditation tapes to evoke an increasing thoughts – and, inevitably, there are sax solos. This palette usually makes the quite a few pop-ambient instrumentals right here really feel reasonably just like the maintain music for a healing-crystal firm, and plenty of of those are fairly forgettable.
However Weihl’s songwriting is far stronger. Pair a Cube has perky synthpop bobbing in an empty sea of minor chords, the right musical analogue for the lyrics: “How will you go away whenever you’re dwelling in any person else’s dream?” The innate melancholy of nostalgia, plus the comforting commercialism of 80s nostalgia specifically, is teased out by the album’s strongest melody on Mall of Luv – “Take me again to the Mall of Luv / I wanna purchase it, I wanna dwell within it” – which is able to sate anybody who set their John Maus albums apart after he attended the 6 January Capitol riot. There’s additionally a contact of Julia Holter to Take a look at, echoing as if in a long-vacated cabaret venue, and once more the lyrics carry you out of the on a regular basis: “Heaven is a spot the place there’s nothing you should buy / tomorrow waits for you, infinite shock.” At her greatest, Weihl conjures the pasts we select to recollect however maybe by no means even lived by means of – the collective fantasias of a tradition in retreat from the horror of now.
