It’s a good time for nostalgia. Perhaps more than ever, the trend cycle has been ever revolving, constantly being given life by way of algorithms and lockdown induced boredom. Currently, we’re somewhere between the late 90’s and 2005. Current rising trends seem to suggest the later end of that spectrum, with Avril Lavigne’s comeback eschewing in the official return of pop-punk and emocore. It’s a cultural moment that works in favour of Berlin’s RIP Swirl, whose debut album Blurry pivots him away from the electronic dance sound he’s best known for toward a grungier, alt-rock stylistic approach that while surprising, feels inherently fitting.
RIP Swirl’s previous singles and EPs have been typical of his status as German underground DJ. In other words, they’ve played on sounding quite cool. 2018’s Nend Sudes took shape as decaying trap-house, while 2020’s Hope U Are Well was pitch-perfect Joy Orbison drag. That EP did offer a glimmer at what might unfold with Blurry, with its moments of soft, lo-fi shoegaze and soft-rock inclinations. On Blurry, Swirl finds himself inspired by the 90’s wave of alt-rock and buzzy trip-hop. Think the soundtrack to The Craft, or Trainspotting’s lucid guitar-breakbeat hybrids. Though nothing on Blurry is as propulsive as Underworld, the album locates itself in a nostalgia for this sound and era. Pass Out (feat. YDE Girl) is a good example of this. The song is like an aesthetic assimilation of something of the sort that would have been released by Heather Nova in 1998. The lyrics, sung in a dazed, burn-out style drawl, are almost entirely indiscernible. They’re mostly a series of intoned vowel sounds, but they sound familiar in quality. It’s as if Swirl recounts a memory of his experience with the qualities of the song’s sound, rather than the song itself. Slipping My Mind is similar, playing out as if being channelled from another dimension. This sort of distance turns his influences into artefacts for Swirl, who on Blurry actively unearths and attempts to restore these to their former glory. The four chord melody of looping trip-hop track Alone Awake could reference Nirvana as much as it could Britney Spears, while the heroine-chic haze of tracks like gUts and Smiling Dog recalls the post-punk boom ignited by The Smiths.
Download and stream Blurry here
We’ve spoken a lot about lockdown induced nostalgia here over the past few months, and it’s impossible to escape the references to simpler times that have arisen in current dance music. Acts like Overmono and Blawan have returned to their spaces of comfort, and on Blurry RIP Swirl does the same. For him, this comfort zone lies in the alternative music he grew up with and with his debut, he doesn’t just pay homage to this sound: he attempts to reestablish it for the zeitgeist.
Listen to Pass Out (feat. YDE Girl) from Blurry below.
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