NEW ARTIST FINDS: WAVELESS

Geographically, the artist known as Waveless hails from Melbourne, Australia but inhabits a strange space all their own. While the territory will seem familiar to those who’ve taken a trip or two to Parts Unknown, Waveless still manages to cover new ground with their hauntingly desolate sound.

"Remnants" I would say is going to be the most easily accessible track because, in all honesty, we’ve heard it before. But whereas similar producers purposefully strive for a jangling, disjointed sound that isn’t always pleasing to hear, Waveless maintains a rhythmic ebb and flow of basses, drones and clicks. Above that are airy hallways of synth with some dramatic bells and keys. It’s like swirling a snifter of brandy in an empty but luxurious room, listening to your cassette player run its metal fingers over the imperfections of the tape, over and over. It’s moody without being melancholy, constant but not boring.

WAVELESS - REMNANTS

Waveless’ edit of Shaman B’s "Heavenly Bodies" is the track that really got me interested in what else Waveless is capable of. There is both an organic warmth and an alien strangeness to the song. Droning, stuttering basses combined with a slightly detuned chord progression and reversed high hats create an odd music space that isn’t really chill and it isn’t really hip hop, though arguments for both sounds could be made. Avoiding a cliché crescendo, the song drops the warmth for a starkly cold finale. It’s a dramatic shift, delivering us to a slightly foreboding place at the end.

WAVELESS - HEAVENLY BODIES

There is a lot of interesting content on Waveless’ Soundcloud page, enough to differentiate them from the lot of chill/minimal artists out there. It’s never a bad idea to take a page from Burial, and I think Waveless does, but removing the overwhelming sense of depression. Instead there are outer wilds being explored with the music. It’s a well worn trail at first but Waveless is thankfully straying toward the edges of the map.