Mach 5

Oh. Hey. It's been a while, I know. You've grown out/shaved the beard, I've quit/taken up smoking, and neither of us has found the time/put in an adequate amount of effort to really keep this relationship going. But what say we put all that behind us, eh?

Now I know it's been an exciting week for music, what with The Weeknd finally dropping their long-awaited mixtape Echoes of Silence (review pending), the emergence of a new Skrillex EP (review here), and Nicki Minaj spewing her bubblegum-pink wrath all over some poor, unfortunate soul. But we're gonna ignore all that for now.

Let me introduce y'all to Ryan Chapin Mach. In addition to being both a gentleman and a scholar (as well as a classmate of mine at the nation's 5th-druggiest college), he also manages to hold his own rather well as a producer-songwriter. His Bandcamp is littered with a veritable bevy of tracks from this past year – mostly lo-fi, Casio-driven laptop-pop (fatwa pending for the amount of hyphens I just used) – but lest you lose your way in the waiting labyrinth of strange and exotic photographs, allow me to provide you with a guide of sorts, in the form of a few highlights and favorites.

Now be nice and shake hands.


The Hors D'Oeuvres: hopefully all the proof you'll need to agree that this kid crafts a hook like no other. Stuck in my head by the second listen.

The Main Course: after a seemingly disconnected stream of individual tracks, it seems the man saw fit to put together an EP, and man am I glad he did. A pleasantly diverse release, featuring everything from reverb-drenched surf pop a la Best Coast to more stripped-down, acoustic fare.

The Dessert: .............well, as far as culinary metaphors go, this would be like following steak and potatoes with a chocolate-covered hand grenade. But while this track might match that jarring combination in sheer dissonance and explosivity, I find its distorted, auto-tuned chaos to be quite delectable.

Seconds: turns out he does "dark" quite well, I couldn't help but come back for more. Really dig the beat on this one.

The Midnight Snack: a slower, muddier, more emotional cut for those lonely late-night jaunts to yr common area's fridge. Maybe those lax bros left some pizza in the–dammit, they ate all of it. Selfish bastards. See if I ever come to one of their stupid games again.

Godspeed, and a merry Festivus to you all.

Lobster out.