“The Comedown” – Roman Ruins
Spacious, stately electro pop with a bashy beat and a swirly sensibility. The vocals land in that nether space between reverb and mud, lending a DIY-ishness to a song that is nonetheless precisely if mysteriously crafted. The long instrumental section that begins at 2:25 and pretty much closes the song out seems on the one hand the kind of meandering mush I steer clear of and yet on the other hand is a weird kind of compelling, unfolding into something oddly beautiful. For instance, there’s something in the layering of synthesizer and noise that goes on between 2:53 and 3:00 that feels careful and deep. And then there’s the casual return of those heavenly vocals (3:14) that we heard previously but then had disappeared. Take beauty where you can find it, my friends.
Roman Ruins is a side project for Graham Hill, who at this point is better known as the touring drummer for the bands Beach House and Papercuts. “The Comedown” was released as a 7-inch single in July on the Oakland-based label Gold Robot Records. The single actually began as a Kickstarter project, a collaboration between Hill and an artist named Hunter Mack, delivering both a vinyl record and a limited art print to fans who funded it. MP3 via Gold Robot. Thanks to the blog My Eyes Are Diamonds for the head’s up.
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