The last two weeks I have reviewed some big names in the music industry.
However, if you know me I am into most genres of music and I like to give you a chance to experience something unique.
Well, this week is going to be one of those weeks.
Yves Tumor, a.k.a. Sean Bowie, is a Tennessee-born electronic producer who has been making big moves in the underground vaperwave, avant-pop and post-industrial/pop-industrial movements since 2010.
He started off as a vaporwave producer under the alias Teams in the early 2010s.
It wasn’t until his breakout record “When Man Fails You” that he started to get into more avant-pop and post-industrial sounds.
However, he has dabbled in ambient, hypnogogic-pop, sound-collage and deconstructive club.
I wouldn’t go exploring sound-collage or deconstructive club unless you want some very abrasive and relentlessly noisy sounds hitting your ear drums.
On his most recent record, “Safe in the Hands of Love,” there is a great deal of improvement both on sound and on structure.
Bowie’s last three records, especially his 2017 record “Experiencing the Deposit of Faith,” were brutally cluttered and unorganized.
It sounded like he wanted to get a multitude of ideas down on paper and produce an album with all these ideas.
This is great, but it makes the record sound too inconsistent and cluttered.
Track after track came off as a new sound and a new experience, which doesn’t always make for the most pleasant listening adventure since you’re always having to change listening approaches for each track.
However, “Safe in the Hands of Love” is more or less organized in the overall structure.
Bowie went with a safer and more intense dose of art-pop with post-industrial synths flowing and cutting through the very ‘80s and ‘90s dance club-style beats.
In general Bowie played it more conservative on this project, which in all honesty is a good thing.
His other projects were sometimes a bear to get through because there were tracks that felt so out of place or too jarring to even listen to.
“Safe in the Hands of Love” is a graceful, loving and whimsical record with touches of horror, darkness and restlessness to keep your mind on the edge of its seat.
However, with that all said, at its core this record is still greatly flawed.
First, there is still a great lack of flow with this project. It’s much better than previous albums since the record stays with a consistent sound and style.
But, the first two songs on the album are dark and avant-guard style electronic sound that don’t fit in with the rest of the record.
The closing track, “Let the Lioness in You Flow Freely,” meanwhile, is an abrasive, noisy, electronic take on noise punk.
The second flaw on the project is there are still songs that are too hard to get through, even for my ears.
Tracks like “All the Love We Have Now,” “Economy of Freedom,” and “Let the Lioness in You Flow Freely” are probably too experimental, too noisy and too challenging even for the best of listeners.
He probably put too much into the tracks to make them really an enjoyable listen.
Overall, it’s a beautiful and entrancing listen.
However, Bowie still has a bit to organize when he comes to his next album.
He has a lot of versatile tools in his tool kit.
He has to have a better idea of how to combine them to create a great listening experience.
To be honest, if anyone could produce the next best experimental electronic album, it could be Bowie, but he needs to work out the few kinks that are holding him down.
Happy listening, Gannon University!
Genre: Art-Pop, Post-Industrial, Experimental Electronics
Rating: 3.7/5
ALLAN COLLINS
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