High Art Lite - Tvam - Audio CD (Arrives in 50 days)

TVAM self-released his much-acclaimed debut ‘Psychic Data’ in the autumn of 2018, something of a cult-classic, the album joined the dots between Suicide’s deconstructed rock ’n’ roll, Boards of Canada’s irresistible nostalgia and My Bloody Valentine’s infinite noise. Psychic Data spawned an ‘Album Of The Day’ and two daytime playlists at BBC 6Music whilst signature tune ‘Porsche Majeure’ featured in HBO’s smash-hit ‘Succession’ ‘High Art Lite’ takes a different tilt to its predecessor by emphasising the immediate and the personal. The colours are blown-out and the brightness is cranked up. TVAM’s take on such things as role models, fictional movie character tropes, and fables of good and evil, are all tackled with the same suspicious cynicism but this time with an urgent belief in the human condition. A heady mix of ‘Black Mirror’’s modern fables, JG Ballard’s gated communities of sun-drenched wealth, and ‘Mulholland Drive’’s boulevard of broken daydreams, High Art Lite offers an all-inclusive package of redemption. Whereas his first album focused on the unknown influences over our surrounds and the information that permeates our unconscious, ‘High Art Lite’ has a wider, more colourful, although no less disconcerting, remit. According to Oxley, ‘High Art Lite’ centres upon the stories, characters and beliefs we absorb and how we latch onto these ideas to guide us through our lives. Clocking in at just under 40 minutes – the pop music sweet spot – ‘High Art Lite’ treads a beguiling line between blissful harmonies, crunching noise pop and childlike innocence . The album is both visceral and melancholic, drifting wonderfully across dream pop, shoegaze and synth pop without ever permanently calling one camp its home. And while these bold sounds lead the album, the vocals, and the moods they add are just as vital. TVAM describes the fluid textures of the vocals as akin to advertising – they creep in subconsciously, elements shifting into the next, providing an opportunity to reflect upon things without being direct or straightforward. As with its predecessor ‘High Art Lite’ is self-produced with mixing duties this time handled by James Trevascus from the Invada studio.

Tracklist

1. Future Flesh
2. Every Day In Every Way
3. Club Nautico (Part 1)
4. Piz Buin
5. Double Lucifer
6. Shallow Ends
7. Semantics
8. Say Anything
9. Host
10. Club Nautico (Part 2)
11. High Art Lite

Label: Invada | Origin: Holland