In the new single “Any Moment,” collaborators Le Sonic and Robert Lee prove once and for all that in jazz, and really any instrumentation-dominant genre of music, sometimes the notion that less is more isn’t just a notion – it’s the gospel truth. Le Sonic doesn’t try to get into our heads with a lot of fanciful experimentation behind the board in “Any Moment,” nor does Lee bring big synthetic guns into the mix rather than the organically melodic element he’s built his reputation on in years past. This is barebones jazz with a highly provocative sonic finish, as could be expected from an act with such a telling moniker.
WEBSITE: http://www.lesonictheband.com/
There’s a vaporwave influence in play in this single, and I don’t think you need to listen to the track at a very high volume to understand what I’m talking about. It isn’t that the swell of the instrumentation replicates the pseudo-psychedelic qualities of an electronic lounge pop sound, but instead that the analog feel to the mix makes even straightforward melodic points of interest (i.e. this piano part) sound really exotic and even spacey. The arrangement left me in a trance, and not just because of compositional sophistication.
I love how this vocal runs beside the string play in the background rather than on top of it, as would be the case if we were at a live performance from a band rather than just listening to a track on a decent pair of speakers (I recommend headphones for this one, but only because of the unintentional intricacies included within the song only noticeable in a complete surround-sound experience). While still being relatively cut and dry in their construction of this track, Le Sonic and Robert Lee manage to make “Any Moment” sound like an orchestral piece in spots, if not a larger-than-life jazz number simply condensed into a dreamy, radio-friendly version.
The production quality is the biggest nod to lo-fi and chamber pop influences here, and but it’s not such a feature that it makes me wonder whether or not the material was created solely to experiment with studio techniques. There’s too much soul in these harmonies, too much honesty in the kinship between our singer and the bassline for theirs to be a marriage of creative convenience, and anyone who thinks otherwise likely hasn’t listened to “Any Moment” in its entirely this August.
DOWNLOAD: https://promo.theorchard.com/wspWkSkDNhx1EO8LmOmo
Eclectic and embracive of minimalist jazz trends without sounding like something that was made specifically to get the attention of a younger audience this summer, Le Sonic’s “Any Moment” brings us to the perfect middle-ground between the modern surreal pop movement and classic chillwave as it was known in the so-called vapor era. As complicated as this song’s aesthetics are, it really is as basic a compositional wonder as I could have hoped to review from such an impressive trio of musicians, which says an awful lot about what they can do to a jazz track when given the space and time to make it perfect for the listener.
Jodi Marxbury