bvdub:
A Different Definition of Love
Dronarivm
Earth House Hold: Never Forget Us
A Strangely Isolated Place
When I listen to the music Brock Van Wey produces under his bvdub alias, I sometimes find myself thinking about those who for whatever reason haven't been exposed to it and how unfortunate for them that is. Long-time followers of the project, on the other hand, already know how special bvdub productions are, and how huge a difference such beautiful material can bring to an individual's life. Anyone who's fallen under the spell of past releases will do so all over again with A Different Definition of Love, as magnificent a bvdub creation as they come. Van Wey has a remarkable gift for infusing his electronic productions with an emotional dimension that's powerfully moving, and this latest bvdub set (his thirtieth, apparently) is no different in that regard.
Six alliteratively titled tracks appear (e.g., “Eyeless [E]choes”), each one bleeding into the next with only the barest of pauses (an acrostic is also present in the titles, with the first letter of the second word in each case collectively forming the word “Forget”). All-consuming synthesizer washes, piano melodies, and hushed vocals are in plentiful supply, but so too are lilting acoustic guitar patterns, and it's these that often intensify the material's stirring emotional effect. The tone is generally mournful, the music suffused with regret and longing, yet ultimately triumphant, too; using instrumental means to craft long, immersive soundscapes (the shortest track just shy of ten minutes), Van Wey entrances the listener with a deep listen that lasts for almost eighty transformative minutes.
Though Van Wey's operating in familiar bvdub territory on the release, he still disarms the listener with an unexpected move or two. Twelve minutes into “Flightless [F]lowers,” for example, the billowing cloud mass that's been in place from the start retreats, leaving a lovely piano episode to carry on in its absence. Perpetuating the seductive pull of the opener, “Oathless [O]ceans” sees reverb-drenched acoustic guitar patterns gradually morph into a plaintive keyboard sequence, and in the sequences that follow the music transitions between dense, atmospheric presentations and intimate ones featuring guitar or piano. Segues between said sections occur slowly, however, such that the music's graceful flow is never derailed by an abrupt transition or non sequitur. One of the album's most beautiful moments arises during “Gainless [G]estures” when acoustic guitar strums and vaporous electronic washes merge to create a dream-like quality that's simply heavenly. With A Different Definition of Love, bvdub devotees should prepare to be mesmerized all over again.Van Wey's elected to issue Never Forget Us under a different guise, Earth House Hold, on account of the material's indebtedness to house music. But truth be told, the album could as easily have appeared under his more familiar alias, given the encompassing stylistic range of the bvdub catalogue. Regardless, it's a natural companion to A Different Definition of Love, even if its slow-burn shifts the focus away from the Dronarivm set in specific ways. It's not the first time he's released music under the Earth House Hold name, by the way, with the first full-length When Love Lived having appeared in 2012 and an EP or two surfacing in the years thereafter. Vinyl fetishists will also want to know that Never Forget Us has been made available in two double-LP editions, standard black (200 copies) and transparent blue (300 copies).
Of course pitching Earth House Hold as a house-related project takes on a radically new meaning when it's one associated with Van Wey. The usual elements one might expect from a house cut—swinging club beats, ecstatic vocal yelps, and the like—are largely absent on Never Forget Us, with the material more sounding like a slightly clubbier bvdub iteration. Compared to A Different Definition of Love, vocals are beefed up on Never Forget Us, Van Wey amplifying the cuts' emotive dimension with multiple layers of soulful vocal counterpoint. As a way of honouring the early house era, he assembled the tracks using instruments and sounds from that period, though the results, especially once they've been put through the Van Wey blender, never feel anything less than contemporary.
By design, the eight cuts grow progressively more clubby, the arc of the release designed to reflect a gradual segue from atmospheric chillouts to deep house workouts. Things heat up with the advent of the third track, “Only Suns Rise,” specifically in the crisp, whip-crack beat pattern deployed as a foundation for the tune's soulful vocal expressions and swishing hi-hats, and the fourth, “Time Can Wait,” which underlays cooing vocal flourishes with a bass-thrusting hi-hat-and-kick drum combination. Even when the groove element deepens, as it does during “Some Never Fall,” the throbbing title track, and closer “Walk On By,” the album's sweetly melancholic material retains its identifiability as a Van Wey production.
April 2018