Album Details
Memory Tapes is an alias of one Dayve Hawk, who you may also know from Memory Cassette or Weird Tapes. He has been toying around with all kinds of sound in his previous projects, finally landing on Memory Tapes, often described as the pleasant mix of the two. Dayve Hawk seems like the kind of guy who really doesn't want to step in the same river twice with his albums, always re-inventing his sound. So, what do we have here? Imagine you got food poisoning from a strange cookie like Alice in Alice in the Wonderland, and shrunk. But the rabbit hole is now a music box. This is the feeling you get from Memory Tapes' Player Piano. The first track "Musicbox (in)" and the last track "Musicbox (out)" will supplement this analogy (minus the food poisoning). Both of the tracks are soft and a little surreal, kind of like the whole Player Piano experience. The vocals are classic Hawk. It sounds like a human voice altered by helium, but instead of helium its some indie-pop gas. Unreal. The overall sound of the album is quite peppy, with unexpected, innovative elements. You can tell Memory Tapes worked his ass off to make an album both creative and fun. "Offers" is perhaps my favorite track to showcase Memory Tapes. "Wait In The Dark" and "Today Is Our Life" are the two singles off the album. "Today Is Our Life" is undoubtedly a ridiculously fun track. Forget reinventing sound on one album. Hawk manages to reinvent sound during a single track. Five minutes long, "Today Is Our Life" starts cold, turns hot, and then playfully fades away. If that's what menopause feels like, I want in. "Fell Through Ice" and "Fell Through Ice II" are dampers to all the fun the album is. These tracks are hazy beauties, so how can you be mad at that. "Fell Through Ice" is deliberate and a little bit tense. The song starts with a very mild electronic intro, serving as an antecedent to the return of spontaneity of the album. While Hawk was quoted saying that this album will sound like "psychedelic girl group music," I insist it's more like a psychedelic bunny. Player Piano strives to expand our consciousness in a very soft, squeezable way. As always, Hawk leaves us with a question in mind: what's next?
