The car screeches, leaving tyre marks. Rain drops race each other to the bottom of the windows.
The CD player starts malfunctioning, jolting sounds and spitting out ambient static. Vocal lines flutter through. It awakens your consciousness. A memory flurries at the back of your mind, you try to catch it but it's fleeting. The windows fog up, Baby It Cold Outside.
The CD player recalibrates and Track 3 starts to play, “Class A Drip” permeates through the car speakers. The swirling guitars put you in a haze while the consistent, slightly grainy, marginally distorted drums ground you back in the here and now. As the track begins to slow down, the vocal deepens and the bass comes to the forefront of the track, it pushes you right back into the haze.
Track 4 - ‘Playback’ blares through, the intro drums bounce in and out of frequency. Ambient synths whirl into focus, lending itself to a crescendo followed by a pause, the car in front of you breaks suddenly, the word ‘play’ comes through as the track morphs into an ambient R&B piece. Sitting in the driver's seat, you watch the rain fall, other cars whizzing past, you hit the brakes as the car in front of you does the same, red lights beaming through the window. You let the track carry you until the traffic light turns green.
You start the car to the next track, ambient synths and forward thinking basslines fill the interior. If you weren’t driving you could slip into the void, one limb at a time. “Handy” is in full force, the pitched down vocal sample mutates into a drum line laced with agony. You feel it in your bones. You catch a high pitch synth whirling in the sidelines of the track, it makes you feel warm, it encapsulates your inner most longing, you're still in the car.
The CD player begins to play up again, what you expect to be the next track isn’t. Static returns, after a few seconds it skips ahead to “Come Down”, perhaps the most structurally aware track on the record. The initial scratchiness of the track evolves into a more fully fledged offering. The guitars jangle and criss cross. You begin to nod along with the drums. It pulls you into a trance. Airy vocals come in, you rise with them. You are content.
The track CD comes on…You’re still on the road.
Words by Tommy Boutros