Cry

The sleepy, ambient pop of Brooklyns Cigarettes After Sex found an unexpected flush of viral success in 2016 when the groups already four-year-old song, Nothings Gonna Hurt You Baby, started putting up massive eight-digit streaming numbers on YouTube. The project of Texas native Greg Gonzalez, Cigarettes After Sexs noir-ish imagery and languid odes to romantic obsession made them seem unlikely candidates for such contemporary pop culture peaks, but the song and subsequent 2017 debut album nonetheless found a very receptive audience. Although the bands roots stretch back to 2008, their follow-up, Cry, is only their second full-length release and it follows more or less in the faded glamour of its predecessor. Like a method actor slipping easily into character, Gonzalez took his sensual slowcore to sea, renting a mansion on the Spanish Balearic island of Mallorca as his next studio. With the gently hissing surf-and-sun-baked limestone cliffs as their backdrop, he and bandmates Randall Miller (bass), Phillip Tubbs (keyboards), and Jacob Tomsky (drums) recorded nine gentle, often improvised pieces of music to which Gonzalez added lyrics at a later date. Cry is nothing if not cinematic and, as its creator has indicated, is indelibly linked to its place of origin. Listening to the opioid strains of Dont Let Me Go or Youre the Only Good Thing in My Life, its easy to picture the lovelorn indie playboy gazing wistfully from a marbled balcony out into the seas infinite expanse. As a writer, Gonzalez cites Richard Brautigan and Leonard Cohen as influences, though his references to Japanese animated porn (Hentai) and all of those rich fuckboys (Kiss It Off Me) feel purely millennial. Musically, the song structures are uncomplicated and rely heavily on lush textures and mood-setting (foreplay, essentially) which is what Cigarettes After Sex seem to do best. ~ Timothy Monger

世界的ヒットとなった前作から2年、米ドリーム・ポップ・バンドがセカンド・アルバムを上梓。まるで霧深い森へ迷い込んでしまったかのような深いリヴァーブ、スロウコア/サッドコアを基調とした灰色の世界観などは変わらず。ロマンティックな愛や性愛を題材としたリリックは、時に前時代的とも思えるノスタルジーを湛えながらも、アンドロジナスかつ繊細なテナー・ヴォイスとの対比で美しく昇華されている。
bounce (C)保坂隆純