WASHED OUT – PARACOSM
1. Entrance
2 .It All Feels Right
3. Don’t Give Up
4. Weightless
5. All I Know
6. Great Escape
7. Paracosm
8. Falling Back
9. All Over Know
Someone’s lying outside in the meadow. The sun is shining and the birds are singing. After a while the person’s falling asleep, forgetting all problems and starting dreaming of a better world.
That’s the scene which crosses your mind whilst you’re beginning listening to WASHED OUT’s new album Paracosm. Ernest Greene, the chillwave producer behind the alter ego WASHED OUT manages it to take you to another world with his latest work. And that’s exactly what the record’s title stands for: “A paracosm is a detailed imaginary world, or fantasy world, involving humans and/or animals, or perhaps even fantasy or alien creations“.
The album is a blurred journey through a better universe – carried by WASHED OUT’s atmospheric voice. There is the opener Entrance, the piece which pitchforks you in the dream world: birds chirp, a harp sounds and female voices sing the typical “Ah’s“ which indicate a supernatural, heavenly happening. Everything merges fluently : floating follows the dreamy and mellow It All Feels Right where filmy human voices talk at the end – just like you’re semi-somnolent. The remaining seven songs become one long, moonly artwork. It’s like you’re experiencing the album trough a veil: you can’t really tell when a new song starts, WASHED OUT’s voice is washed out indeed and organic sounds appear diffidently. And that’s exactly how chillwave/dreampop records should be like.
Paracosm is the perfect music for a warm summer day. And that’s Ernest Greene’s intention in particular: „I think one idea that I definitely had in mind was that I wanted the record to have a daytime feel to it. For me, that [means] very optimistic, major-key kind of songs. And also more acoustic, kind of warm sounds were really important. So, as far as my work space, there’s a big window in my studio with a view of a garden. And that was always sort of a rough inspiration: What sort of music would I want to listen to on a walk-through the garden on a beautiful summer day?” (Washed Out Interview on Refinery29)
So, grab your music player, listen to WASHED OUT’s terrific new work Paracosm“ and have a walk or a sleep outside. You won’t regret doing it- you’ll be taken into an ideal world without any worries.
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