Sun Glitters - Everything Could Be Fine

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  • Everything about Luxembourg producer Sun Glitters screams washed out nostalgia, from the name to the pastel tones of the artwork. The actual music matches, a heatsick blur of chimes, drums, and of course, chopped and pitched-up vocal samples. The immediate stylistic analogue—barring the omnipresent Burial, of course—would be Balam Acab, but it seems unfair to draw parallels between two artists who emerged at roughly the same time. Besides, Victor Ferreira's music shares a similarly leisurely lope, but his beats always feel slightly unconventional and lopsided, perhaps more comparable to oddball LA producers like TAKE or Shlohmo. Saturated tones colour Everything Could Be Fine, but they're not quite the shades of vivid red or autumnal orange that you might expect. More often than not, Ferreira's overloaded soundstage is a landscape that feels doused in blinding white, skewed hip-hop structures that test the limiter with every swelling punch, a violent touch at odds with the surface-level elements that struggle to engender a pervasive positivity ("Love Me"). This is music warped by the very heat and warmth that inspires it, melting the melodies at the core of tracks like "Beside Me" or "Too Much to Lose" into syrupy lullabies. The result is equally soothing as it is unnerving, like there's something sinister lying underneath the deceptively innocent surface. Ferreira utilizes the same byproducts of time-stretching that Acab does, but in his work they act as naked stitching, revealing the natural breaking points. On "Softly and Slowly" it feels like the rhythm is in danger of falling apart at the seams every time it heaves and thrusts. The other thing that separates Ferreira from the pack is his choice of percussion; "Feel It"'s beat slices harshly in a way incongruous with the whimsicality that surrounds it. Album highlight "Dragonfly in the City" mixes dizzy string samples with gasping vocals that can barely complete their phrases, whirling them around a destabilized centre that somehow feels reassuring. Much of the appeal of Ferreira's music lies in this unusually comforting grey area, and that's why it's the kind of record that takes hold of you and doesn't let go. At 27 minutes, the album might be slight, but that coy brevity feels like just another extension of the record's winking naivete. It doesn't take much these days to evoke bouts of hushed nostalgia with gentle beats and vocal samples, but it does take someone skilled to make it this complex, this uplifting and this penetrating.
  • Tracklist
      01. Beside Me 02. Too Much To Lose 03. A Dragonfly In The City 04. Feel It 05. Softly And Slowly feat. Rob Boak 06. Find Your Way (See) 07. Love Me 08. Everything Could Be Fine
RA