Memory Tapes: "Yes I Know"

Dayve Hawk’s solo work as Weird Tapes, Memory Cassette, and Memory Tapes has always set itself apart from the rest of the hopelessly overcrowded chillwave pack due to his ability to infuse the genre’s callow aesthetic—rudimentary drum-machine beats, cavernous reverb, and the appropriation of ’80s musical tropes—with actual feeling. Player Piano, Hawk’s second full-length, belies both the implications of disengagement suggested by its title and Hawk’s head-scratching description of the album as a collection of “keyboard-based, psychedelic, girl-group songs”; its second single, “Yes I Know,” is both a highlight and an encouraging departure from Hawk’s regular formula.

The song occupies a distinctly melancholic headspace; its loping beat, hesitant melodies, and palpable negative space suggest despondence: “You’re a voice without a sound,” Hawk sings in his strained tenor. But this is neither an accusation nor a sentiment entrenched in hopeless ennui; rather, Hawk seems to be yearning for that kind of intangible existence. In a lesser song, this would be a convenient excuse for chillwave’s usual disembodied approach, but thanks to a sparse arrangement and beautifully understated production, this detachment is closely linked to the song’s emotional appeal. “Yes I Know” is a song about loss, about how tragedy eats away at those closest to its victims, yet here, the disintegration into sadness is catharsis. The full-blooded drums that emerge out of the song’s distant rhythmic shuffle are predictable, sure, but they also feel earned, helping to turn what could have been forgettable into something genuinely affecting and haunting.