At nearly 24, I’m surprised to find myself feeling different about new music than I used to just a few years ago. The window of time I could reasonably consider calling my “formative years” seems to have naturally come to a close, and as a result I often feel strangely distant from new discoveries no matter how amazing they sound to me. The silver lining is the extra boost of anticipation and excitement when “my” bands/artists/producers release new material, which sends me into a weird state of premature nostalgia. This single certainly brought me there immediately. I’m hard pressed to think of many other artists who’ve explicitly embodied the “feel” more than Washed Out and for lack of a more concrete explanation, Ernest Greene’s newest effort still puts the same glazed expression on my face as the first album did.
“Glazed” in this case is not derisive in any way. His knack for extra-wide hypnotic rhythms and his “bedroom-to-dancefloor” success story has gone on to characterize the archetypal chillwave persona. Where his first record succeeded through raw simplicity and sleepy vocal coos, “It All Feels Right” along with the rest of the new record are very much grasping onto the psyched out ’60s experimental vibe making a splash through groups like Tame Impala, DIIV, and Jagwar Ma. This track is stripped of the simple processed kick/snare rhythm found on his earlier work and instead features a more organic array of instruments.
Lyrically, Green is not one to get too introspective. This tune is more or less a laundry list of all the reasons why “it all feels right.” These songs don’t care about saying anything profound and it would be strange if they did. Check out the rest of the album for a pleasantly surprising amount of variety and innovation.