By It’s our Bandcamp Picks of the Week, featuring My Best Unbeaten Brother’s delicious, catchall rock project PESSIMISTIC PIZZA and Roopen’s vibed-out, ambient house record JUICY TRAX!
Roopen – JUICY TRAX
Genre: Ambient House, Balearic Beat, Downtempo
Favorite Tracks: “Wanabee,” “:),” “Africa 2040”
Japan’s Roopen sure loves ‘90s electronica, and it’s felt all over their newest mixtape, JUICY TRAX. This release follows their previous set of songs, THE FRONTIER, which was similarly inspired by ambient techno and downtempo. While that collection had more length and variety, JUICY TRAX distills their assortment of woozy and bleepy ambient house into a succinct nine tracks. The resulting tape is digestible and commanding, playing out like an exploration of nostalgic mellow house from yesteryear. Even the cover serves this notion: a tribute to fractal landscape-rendering programs such as Bryce3D, the most fitting visual depiction of these ethereal floor-fillers.
The tracks are quite fluttery and floaty, tied together by frilly bells and whistles like sampled hi-hats and bongos, which drive the propulsion. Opener “Wanabee” skitters along with chirpy acid squelches. The Balearic influence cements itself on “:)” and “The Bomb,” both reminiscent of Soichi Terada’s entrancing deep house. “Africa 2040” matches the artwork—a naturalistic, blissed-out voyage across still waters. “Alien Technology” continues the Terada worship, until “Flip It” subverts the preceding playful charm for low-slung, trippy breakbeats. On the whole, it’s a fun and endearing display of the hypnotic deep house that seeped its way into the early noughties. I hear echoes of local chillout compilations of that time throughout this thing, and I’m certain other listeners will draw their own comparisons. Cassettes produced by Odd Tape Duplication are available for purchase, which you can buy on Roopen’s Bandcamp. [Dom Lepore]
My Best Unbeaten Brother – PESSIMISTIC PIZZA
Genre: Indie Rock
Favorite Tracks: “Time on Our Hands, Spider-Man” “Blues Fatigue,” “A Song About Double-Crossing a Friend”
Forget hugs or soup; comfort is hearing life’s most disarming truths spoken with true depth and power. That’s what makes PESSIMISTIC PIZZA, from UK’s My Best Unbeaten Brother, as satisfying as its namesake cuisine. Yet despite said wonderfully hokey title, the LP’s generally serious. The seven-track affair engages this amalgamation of pain, confusion, longing, and doubt that may be universal and timeless but feels maddeningly relevant post-COVID/pre-apocalypse.
“Time on Our Hands, Spider-Man” references both Spidey and Betamax, but the vibe’s less whip-smart Fall Out Boy and more torrent of profound honesty. Spidey is less a symbol for Peter Pan-ian awkwardness and more how our protagonist is happy to be this perpetually bummed-out paladin, overexerted but swinging in to save each new crummy day. That overt honesty continues in “A Song About Double-Crossing a Friend.” Don’t let another mega-FOB title confuse or irritate—this is a potent exploration of a friendship you’ve let fester. The fact that it’s among the more peppy, “traditionally” rocking selections feels both depressive and fecklessly self-aware.
The LP’s remainder maintains this textured emotionality. “Blues Fatigue” is a “Let’s run away!” anthem, but as a middle-aged loser in a dreary seaside town. “Close-up Magic” is where your life falls apart in real-time across some stupid power pop song. They’re catchy-but-crushing realizations that our world’s slowly crawling towards a poorly plotted end. Sure, there’s love and superheroes, but these are as much obstacles as upsides. The band ultimately peels back the layers until we’re all laid bare in the dumbest, most embarrassing timeline possible. It’s a record that sighs heavily at the mouth of an active volcano and trots on regardless. The record’s power isn’t even always spoken; it’s the sonic decisions furthering these notions. A twangy hook and pulsing drum beat in “Extraordinary Times” forces momentum even when you’re mostly slipping. Or consider the math rock-ish tendencies of “The Art of Letting Go”—as if there’s some way to get better at this madness or songwriting cheat codes for being bigger and bolder. But it’s always Ben Parker’s vocals—from the wonderfully awkward force on “Time…” to the minor pop tinge on “Blues Fatigue” and the disarming rawness of “It’s Not Embarrassing To Care About Stuff,” Parker keeps this pain firmly in our bedrooms (and maybe just in our heads).
There’s no guidance or even a sense that things could improve. Instead, the LP comforts by unassumingly being itself and showing how MBUB are masters at wielding emotion like a blade—not to cut or injure but to remove layers and doubts and let us all gather in some newly-cleared valley of awkward but essential truths. It’s comfort not as a mere salve but armor for the battle ahead, or notes for a map of the truest world. Nothing will make it out of this mess, but we sure can sojourn with a little more heart and grace. And that’s a power that’ll warm your very bones like hearty clam chowder. Listen to it over on Bandcamp. [Chris Coplan]
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