Taken from their Bandcamp page, this is how Absent Fever is described. "Absent Fever is a free digital release label/music collective started by Eloise of verb/re/verb and Tyler of Flashlight Tag. Aside from exposing emerging young talent via free music, Absent Fever’s goal is to also incorporate visual based mixed media art in order to further the connection between music and visuals"
While digging through Bandcamp a while back, I came across this little album. The album was a free download, which I always love. The album contains seven tracks by seven different acts. The album is described best on their Bandcamp link. "Generation Y Not is a compilation of 7 young Los Angeles artists, all of whom are part of the enormous movement of youth in music. The compilation is a feature on the paramount shift in music culture, how because of the internet and the way this generation has grown up with the ability to create and share so easily, music has been taken into the hands of youth." Most of the album is of an electronic-low key sound.
"Immersion" by Kontent is the second track. Most times I would skip right past this, not because it isn't good but because it doesn't really provide much to me. The rhythmic beat is to repetitive. There is a little bit of variation, but not enough to make the track more interesting.
Wondr provides the third track, "What A Day." While the track starts with a possibility of hope, it just finds a way to make itself seem to ambient. Even with the added vocal sampling, the track doesn't really provide much. Sometimes I wish people who did ambient music would stop doing it with an electronic background. A song like this needs a little more drums and less out-thereness.
Sometimes an album just needs a total change of pace and boy does it come in from left field on this one. Honeydrip's "Dull Tydes Brings Us All Down Sometimes" is no-where close in the musical realm as the previous offerings. This might be the Absent Fever label's rock band. They have a decent sound, but the vocals need some practice. Not to sound like a total douche-bag hipster when talking about this band, but I guess I did. I like their sound. They remind me of plenty of other bands when they were first starting out. I hope they keep up the good work and keep up the fine tuning.
"The Last Chapter (Forgive Me)" by Caves comes sixth. In about 200 days, we will get to the Caves album and you will get to see how awesome they are. This track is just a little too slow for me. Especially after following a up and coming rock band. This follows in the ambient sound of the earlier tracks. I have heard better things from this band and maybe that is why this track disappoints me. Softly singing over a monotonous beat with keyboard dragging sounds does not make for an awesome track. In case you didn't know.
After one minute of listening to "In My Head" by Eliot, I finally got to hear a track that is good. The first minute of nothingness should have been left for nothing. The remainder reminds me what I love about chilled out electronic music. It has a good rhythm, nothing you can dance to, but something that you can write to (as I am right now). There is nothing more to this track other than a solid background and a more focused rhythm system. It isn't overpowering, which is a good thing.
Last track!! Tuesday Glass gives us a rock song that hopefully Honeydrip will pay attention to. Not just how it sounds, but also in how it sounds. "Better Places" reminds me a bit of that short period in "alternative" music, when bands weren't sure of their sound. That is still making late 80s sounds vs 90s grunge sounds. Tuesday Glass is right there, but they deliver very well.
All in all, I couldn't tell you how often I will listen to this in the future. Maybe one day when I hear a song, I'll be reminded of this sampler album. For a free album, I'm not entirely bitching about it. For a bunch of kids doing work, I applaud them. The one luxury of youth is time and over time we all are able to grow in maturity and skills. Those of us enjoy this culture in music should look forward to hearing more. There is solid potential for some of these groups and I wish them the best of luck in their journey.
Next up: Abstract Tribe Unique "Mood Pieces"
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