∞ The Brown Noise ∞

It's telling that even chillwave's creators have realized the genre has grown stagnant. With artists like Neon Indian and Toro Y Moi moving towards a more organic, instrument-based direction, rather than relying on the sampling of woozy synthesizers and saturday morning cartoon themes, a genre that has been much-maligned for wallowing in childhood is now showing signs of maturity. That's not to say change result is for the better - I wasn't a fan of the newest Toro Y Moi album - but it is change, which every good genre save for thrash metal needs in order to stay interesting. Your Floor Is Now A Tree, The latest release from ModyWorks Recording Co.'s AIMES is a change from the usual chillwave formula. By incorporating fuzzily-recalled elements of 1970s manhattan disco and drums occasionally tinged by hi-NRG, AIMES manages to keep things fresh, for the most part. Although spotty and inconsistent towards it's second half, Your Floor Is Now A Tree is a modestly impressive debut release that manages to refresh the sounds of chillwave without overtaxing them. 

The album is anchored by "Every Time When I See You", It's lead single and best track. It's romance spread out over six minutes and forty five seconds, all warm, enveloping keys and Aman Ellis's golden voice, like a thousand yachts riding into the sunset on an 8-bit tidal wave. "If You Ever Wanna" is another great tune, thick kick drums, hand claps and plinking keys that undulates and evolves until it all suddenly fades away, and it's just Ellis, lullabying the girl of his dreams. "Living Like We Do" echoes Letting Up Despite Great Faults' post-coital shoegaze stylings, with Ellis restraining his golden voice into a sweet yawn. "Hard Notes and Love Drugs" is the first sign of anything other than bliss in AIMES' lovestruck universe, the album's second song explicitly designed to be a dancefloor filler, and despite Ellis's voice, AIMES best asset, running away into the tide only to be replaced by a robot facsimile, it still manages to whip of something of a minor-key storm amid Rick Astley drumbreaks and echoes of early house. Add that to the pleasant chip-hop tartness of "She Knows The Future", and  AIMES could have cut the whole show off here and made himself a very fine 6-song EP.

Unfortunately, he doesn't. After "Wonder Stories" plods on for five minutes and thirteen seconds without any interesting emotional ideas to play with or semblance of a direction, the whole album takes a sharp jump off the diving board of quality and into the deep-end of b-side fodder. "...And We Know Who Rules the World" is a pleasant little headbobber but nothing more, riding it's beautiful thrumming bassline into a nothing groove over Ellis' least-impressive vocal turn yet. "Will You Be?" reaches for Moby, falls short, and ends up being a surprisingly solid oasis in a b-side desert anyway, before an unnecessary reprise of "Everytime When I See You" makes you reach for the fast-forward button yet again. The second side of the album doesn't make you wish for it to be over, it's just dissapointing. It's a shame, because AIMES tries all these cool genre tricks, like the use of dark ambient on "Everytime When I See You (Reprise)", but musicality-wise, at this point, he doesn't have the panache to pull them off. The album's narrative, following Ellis' path in and out of love, similarly follows mine, in and out of love with these songs.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, though - "You and Me" sounds like James Blake picking up a minimoog, with Ellis' plaintive vocals and a shower of reverb on the keys, washing away the memories of the low-quality songs on the second half of the album. Your Floor Is Now a Tree is simply a good album with good songs, it's not a classic, it's not trying to be something that it's not. For what it is, it's a very solid debut release. Would I reccomend that you buy this album? probably. Would I put it on my year-end "best-of" list? Probably not. But that's okay. I'm not the biggest fan of chillwave in the first place. If you are, then you might find a spot on your list for this collection of solid, quirky tunes.

 <span>AIMES: Your Floor Is Now a Tree by ModyWorks</span> 

Support AIMES by purchasing his debut album, Your Floor Is Now a Tree, via iTunes.