Tropics: "Going Back"

Ever wondered what a moth would look like two days into its chrysalis? Something that’s neither A nor B, or a smaller version of Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. We catch up with Chris Ward in a similar state: “multi-instrumentalist” seems an odd tag given the Soft Vision EP last year, whose hunks of chillwave suggested Planet Mu had taken to signing sun-worshippers. For his first full-length, however, he’s in metamorphosis, listing himself as indie rock and proving—at least with this preview—that he’s not quite the unrisen sponge cake you’d expect. Gone is the sampling of his debut EP, and instead we get Ward’s own voice and own collection of instruments—a lot of which he still likes to blur and manipulate till they resemble a melted Rhodes keyboard. It begs the question of why he announced a change in style at all: perhaps he’s just got a phobia of blog keywords, and couldn’t stand seeing “chillwave” in another review again.

“Going Back” is a chillwave track but with a compass, not content to just meander, sigh, and roll around in half melodic fuzz. Ward’s gentle snare drums give it facial expressions, making it seem less like Shoegaze 101 and more like listening to Depeche Mode while drunk. Clinging on to one dazzling pad for five minutes, he hums, “I keep my mouth shut / Embrace the aching air / On your smile” and smears everything in electric piano, tinkling his guitars like cocktail ice. Maybe he’s trying to achieve Most Onomatopoeiac Band Name 2011 but based on “Back” Tropics’ first album looks exotic, and if it does dive fully into indie rock at least one track features a Jah Wobble bass line.