Caws Radio

so fresh and so clean clean

Thank you for the kind words, Cody, but what is up with that creepy picture? The ghost of Brett Smith, captured on film! He looks so restless...

I am listening to a compilation by 1980, aka Wes Medina, aka my cousin. Wes lives in LA where he works, makes music, and DJs at parties. He makes his music with mostly real hardware, not that computer nonsense.

1980's sound is smooth, atmospheric, and 'clean'. It seems to me that most 'clean' electronic artists today are a bit dull, but Wes keeps you interested with his close attention to melody and song structure. Even his messier tracks hold together as if every little sound is exactly where it should be. He knows that something clean and smooth is going to be examined up close, touched and felt. The slightest imperfection or annoyance will be distracting and glaring to the song's texture. He is able to back up the smoothness of the sound with songs that are interesting and emotional, that progress and change like a superb soundtrack. The music seems like the accompaniment to some kind of wordless narrative, like a (smoother) Brothers Quay film. I could imagine the odyssey of an animated character shuffling about a Charles Sheeler metropolitan world, meeting bizarre beings and encountering lots of tangible symbolism. Brian's Midnite Adventure, as the title of one song.

I don't think my music is as clean or as smooth, and most of the time that is intentional. I like adding electronic dust and garbage, like the fuzz/static effect in Bottle of Kids or the broken, disjointed latter half of Batteryfly (which I did under my old name Playgrounds and which I will make available for download as soon as I manage to record it again. Damn computer…). I feel like if I tried to make truly 'clean' music I would not be able to support it with such grace as 1980, but I'm glad he is there to make clean cool.