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Much the same as digital has done for the world of photography, the power of technology in music has broadened the base of creators. It has democratized the art form. This has lead to an onslaught of “artists” who fancy themselves the next Ansel Adams adding their filtered black and whites to an Instagram feed and two-bit producers believing themselves the next Mozart whilst uploading their tracks to a newly minted Bandcamp profile. With all this subpar work being added to the noise out their it is easy to get lost in the sea of crap and start to believe there’s not much worthwhile.
Then something like Mowgli by up and coming Chicago producer Mister Lies comes around, and you realize that maybe everyone having the ability to create isn’t such a bad thing after all. While by no means perfect, there’s a lot to enjoy here. This isn’t the electronic music you may be used to or that which has invaded the popular conscience. Nothing here would be found on a commercial. Nothing here is going to be blared in a club. Yet, like both those genres, dubstep and EDM, this creates an atmosphere. In fact that’s basically all this music is about, atmosphere. It is dreamscapes and floating and ether filing through your ears and around your head. Working much closer along the lines tread by the likes of Portishead, these are the type of songs you close your eyes to and they take you places.
It’s hard to pick out favorite songs because the album feels so cohesive and together. Most of the album lies in the lines laid out by opener, “Ashore.”
Random vocal samples that add color or a flash of story and some building block drips, claps, and beats that go up nicely just like a new LEGO® kit.
Every track builds upon the next to create a journey you really want to see through, at least for the first six songs. “Hounded,” the seventh track on the album, while by no means unenjoyable, just feels jarring from the subtle dream that the first six songs seem to put you on. It doesn’t feel like a nightmare, but more like an alarm clock when it kicks on and the sampled, distorted vocals start repeating. The discord of the song is definitely an atmosphere change that feels apart from the journey we’ve come through. If there were more songs after it to continue some new journey it would feel more in place, but the next song “Trustfalls” is slower, smoother, and subtler which feels more in line with the first six and makes me question the track order somewhat.
This album is interesting and fresh, and it is work like this that signifies the greatness of the era we live in both technologically and musically. It is our modern computer systems which make this collection of sounds possible, both its creation and distribution. The democracy of art, while providing more muck to rake through, really shines when work like this falls in your lap.
Mister Lies – Mowgli tracklist:
- “Ashore”
- “Dionysian”
- “Align”
- “Lupine”
- “Canaan”
- “Ludlow”
- “Despair”
- “Hounded” (Feat. Exitmusic)
- “Trustfalls”
