Veröffentlicht
Jul 4, 2024
- Undeniably chic post-punk on Nicolas Jaar's label.
- Alone in a Brooklyn loft, Solpara felt the brutal duality of the pandemic. Living off unemployment cheques, the Lebanese-American producer, once forced to carefully make time to produce while under the strain of multiple jobs, adjusted to idle living. He took Arabic lessons in the morning, skateboarded down long stretches of lifeless streets and breezed through Tracey Thorn's memoir. But he also faced the limits of isolation, as he was forced to watch from afar as family in Lebanon was impacted by the Beirut Port Explosion. He didn't lose hope, though. He found faith in the collectivism of the Black Lives Matter protests and how–now that he wasn't restricted by work hours–he could spend more time capturing it all in his music.
Solpara's debut album, Melancholy Sabotage, is a diary of this time. The alt-indie record for Nicolas Jaar's Other People label delicately balances the grittier end of house and techno with the noir romance of post-punk guitar. Jaar scouted Solpara nearly a decade ago, releasing the New York-based producer's Swing EP in 2015. The record showed signs of a well-versed artist who could make lo-fi house tunes to head nod to, as well as the sort of cloudy ambient that gives you room to think about the world outside club walls. Those moods, once siloed off into individual songs, merge entirely on Melancholy Sabotage. In a little over a half hour, brutalist drums slice through meandering compositions, while Solpara rises out of post-pandemic doldrums with weary, barely-there whispers.
Solpara once told Inverted Audio that three films: 120 BPM, The Internet's Own Boy: The Story Of Aaron Swartz and Beauty And The Dogs left a mark on him because of the way they deal with how neglect from higher powers tragically impacts the lives of the characters. The realism on Melancholy Sabotage allows the album to address similar worldly themes, even if for the most part, the lyrics are indecipherable. The song titles allude to moments where people showed strength in numbers during the pandemic. He addresses the autonomy of the Black Lives Matter movement on "We Keep Us Safe," which moves to the plod of plucky trip-hop. On "We Don't Owe," a song about holding corrupt corporations accountable, ghastly whines pierce through spunky lo-fi house.
But that's not to say Melancholy Sabotage ever sounds riled up. A tobacco-scented air of malaise hangs over the album, one borne out of something that lingers close to boredom. Echo and delay blur the jangly guitar and muttered vocals on "This Time Last Year" into an atmosphere that's as heavy as eyelids on a muggy July afternoon. The long basslines on the title track climb with the promise of euphoria, but Solpara's mumblings linger like the reality of daybreak at a rave's close. It's down to the jacking percussion you'd expect to find on a L.I.E.S. or L.A. Club Resource record to give the eye bags under the synths some fighting spirit, like on "Time to Hold You Better," where unrelenting hi-hats and nifty metronome clicks lift the guitar squalls with a 2-step shuffle. "Measures" is where the album really turns bolshie, shaking out of the previous track's fog with prickly electro synths.
Had Melancholy Sabotage simply progressed from dubby indie music to industrial techno, as you might expect after listening to Swing, it would have been too easy. Instead, spectral vocals unsettle the cool Clint Eastwood swagger of "We Don't Owe"'s lo-fi drums and growling guitar riff. The industrial chug on "Breaking Points" never breaks out of its muted distortion, leaving gales of rough-necked drums to circle pensive pads. By preventing any visceral emotion from dominating another, Solpara avoids dramatic extremes and gives you something truly sincere to sink into. The closed-off world of emotions he presents in the process can't help but be undeniably chic.
Tracklist01. Time To Hold Better
02. This Time Last Year
03. We Keep Us Safe
04. Melancholy Sabotage
05. Measures
06. We Don't Owe
07. Breaking Points
08. Eviction