Chillwave is Post-Chillwave
By Ian Mercer Illustrations by A Noah Harrison
Don’t go writing a two-page CLAP article about me being an asshole for writing this title. I promise: this isn’t about chillwave being shitty; it’s just a few observations on the unique space that the genre occupied in contemporary music history. Since nobody can agree on what this genre actually is, I’ll refer to wikipedia: “chillwave is a genre of music whose artists are often characterized by their heavy use of effects processing, synthesizers, looping, sampling, and heavily filtered vocals with simple melodic lines.” The term itself was coined by the editor-in-chief (known only as “Carles”) of the music blog Hipster Runoff. This essay will outline the three standard-bearers of the movement before entering into a brief discourse on the state of chillwave today. The deepest roots of the movement were modest. Near the end of 2008, 19-year-old Texan Alan Palomo (AKA Neon Indian) skipped out on an invitation to drop acid with his ex-girlfriend. After this fateful decision, his immense waves of regret compelled him to express his complex emoting via song, resulting in his magnum opus: “Should Have Taken Acid With You” (the poetic lyrics include: “Should have taken acid with you / Touch the stars and the planets too / Should have taken acid with you / Melt our tongues and become unglued”). This demo (somehow) resulted in Alan catching a record deal with Lefse Records and, eventually, the Fader Label which was responsible for putting out his debut: Psychic Chasms in October 2009. I feel that the album is better as a snapshot in 10
time than as a musical statement. If you heard it in high school, I’m sure you loved it like I did, but if you check it out again now… well I’ll let you decide for yourself. In this author’s opinion, only the zeitgeist-bearing “Deadbeat Summer” and (painfully titled) “Terminally Chill” have held up well since ’09. Entries like “Laughing Gas” and “Local Joke” make me feel like I’ve eaten too much candy corn. Ernest Greene, a native of Georgia, released the second installment of The Holy Chilfecta under the name Washed Out. Life of Leisure EP dropped almost simultaneously with Psychic Chasms, and it contains the biggest hit that will be mentioned in this entire essay: “Feel It All Around.” Every single scratched-up “Summer Mix ‘09” CD in the world had this track on it (alongside “My Girls” and “Two Weeks”) and it soon became his “Creep.” Mr. Greene couldn’t escape it, and I believe that every composition that he’s made since has been a reaction against it. Anyways, the EP is good enough. It’s great as “ey-braj-toke-some-mad-dank-andcheck-out-this-siq-track” music (but, in the end, I suppose all the music I’m talking about here could fit that description). “FIAA” is indeed a great track, and is certainly the best on the EP, but other than that the short project, at only 17 minutes, somehow still manages to drag on for too long. Only three months later, the final champion of chillwave, Toro y Moi, made his debut with Causers of This. TyM is the pseudonym of Chazwick Bundick (yes, that’s his real name), a native of South Carolina. He released this album
