đź’˝ Your Day Will Come by Chanel Beads
Will reviews the new release from Chanel Beads, Your Day Will Come—an elusive and evocative debut album of fever dream pop.
Fever dream pop: that’s the best label I can give Your Day Will Come, the evocative and elusive debut from Chanel Beads. After all, Shane Lavers, the man behind the moniker, conceived this record during a Covid quarantine in his (presumably claustrophobic) Brooklyn apartment. All throughout, richly strummed guitars brush against tinny sounding digital instruments, making the record feel both right in the room with you, and transmitted from a strange other world.
The first few songs are filled with enchanting hooks sung by Lavers and collaborator Maya Colle. Interestingly, the autotune increases to the point where the two voices run together. I can barely make out the words of opener “Dedicated to the World,” but between that melody and the steady beat, it lives rent free in my head. Tantalizingly these treats last barely two minutes a piece without bothering to repeat a chorus or refrain.
In true dissociative fashion, Your Day Will Come progresses into instrumentals that drift from angelic to discordant. These make a compelling counterweight to the dreamy first side, but are far less memorable. Generously, closer, “I Think I Saw,” reintroduces both voices singing the most beautiful melodies of the record. The project suggests equal parts Alex G’s bedroom tinkerings and Steve Reich’s meditative permutations. While its trim 27 minutes makes an impressively compact listen, I look forward to future work that expands the song structures and interweaves the ambient element more effectively. In its lopsided beauty Chanel Beads channel the disorientation of drifting in and out consciousness, and evoke the curious silver lining of dreams half remembered.
One More Thing
Goddamn, Vampire Weekend has done it again! Frontman Ezra Koenig may be smug, but for good reason. With another batch of poignant bops, Only God Was Above Us takes the world’s pulse for an emotional and timeless record on the burdens of privilege, history and memory.
Upcoming
A friend is bidding farewell to his east village bachelor pad by staging a mini festival on the dumpy roof! Fittingly, we’re titling the pop-up Rathaus in celebration of New York’s scenic grit. I’m excited to be curating a lineup of stellar artists alongside a roster of incredible musicians.
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