Misc. Day – Under The Waves

In a fairly non-dominant stance, Surfing is a two-piece hailing from Down Under, a land of waves, desolation, and Mad Max-esque cinematography. Australia is simply a long, droning piece of land that relates well with the style that Surfing’s 2012 release, Deep Fantasy portrays. Somewhere between the Lemon Myrtle plants and a dawning sun, Deep Fantasy invokes interest from afar with spaced out sounds that represent cosmic rebirth.

The debut studio record coming from Surfing, the group led by both Penny Van Hazelberg and Leroy Honeycomb where the fever dreams and idealistic representation is simply transient. The record feels more drug-induced with a ride on holographic texture packs that begins with “Del Boca Vista,” a calmly building track that surveys the landscape. It is clouded and one of desert sessions, the kind of styles that are attractive on the long car rides through the outskirts of town, or on the early morning rises. Somewhere caught in a dream through the off-times of civilization, those first rings of the guitar becomes almost otherworldly on “Moonlight” where a strong balance hangs, dangling in front of the listener.

The sense of sequencing and formality is a distant, but a warm handshake. A contradiction within the often murky watered singing and the instrumentation that creates more questions than answers. The performances are present, but never truly there as they space out and becoming starry acts amongst the atmosphere. Somehow buried in the middle as a spectator and volunteer, Surfing is an entirely calm journey that does not seem to show a sign of creating harsh noise at any point. Instead, the adaptation of each sound comes from a place of tranquility and a comfortable, but still engaging confusion.

Each track piles on and adds up these layers of simplicity where the 10-track record becomes more of a subsonic art piece than a powerhouse of sound. Each time that the vocals are introduced after a long section of instrumentation, Surfing is almost an old friend that pays an unexpected but hopeful pop-up. In a mix of mostly inaudible lyrics, the vocals are more of a bassline creation than any sort of cognition through performance. The true beauty of the vocals comes from how the repetition resembles continuous strokes of paint on a page. The bounce comes easy as the tracks on Deep Fantasy are more provoked on the sense of creativity and movement than the rapid-fire of notes.

A transitional place between death and creation, Surfing basks under a red sun that seems transplanetary. Through Deep Fantasy, the motivation on the record is engaging and suddenly a sculpture of how to create a vaporwave record through modulation and correlation. As Surfing begins to ride the final foam waves, the closing curtains are just as engaging and relating to the listener as the first seconds where for a moment, Surfing was controlling land and sea.

Listen To Deep Fantasy Here!!! – BandCamp/Youtube/Spotify/Amazon/iTunes