WASHED OUT

Chillwave - “makes you feel like you’re sitting on a couch in the sand staring at the beach”.  “I just make cheap music using cheap equipment in my shitty basement”. These are just a few of my favourite quotes describing the genre. The term “Chillwave” is credited to being created by the infamous Carles from hipsterrunoff.com and brought to the forefront of music culture in 2007 by Panda Bear, aka Noah Lennox founder of Animal Collective. With young artists popping out of their parent’s basements at an increasingly rapid rate these days there has been a surge in the Chillwave movement. Toro Y Moi, Neon Indian, Million Young, and Velanova are just a few who have managed to make their presence known in the scene, but the band Washed Out, headed by frontman Earnest Greene, has taken the chillwave movement to the next level. I have to admit I was fairly tentative to this whole Chillwave movement when I first encountered it a few years back and I’m still not completely sold, but after my best friend/roommate bumped it for so long it slowly grew on me.  I remember seeing Earnest for the first time a few years ago at a tiny venue in Los Angeles called The Echo and being far from impressed. Once again they disappointed me at FYF Fest in 2010, but last month in San Diego opening for Cut Copy I finally got it. Well I don’t know if it was as much of me “finally getting it” or Washed Out “finally getting it”. The first time I saw Washed Out it was Earnest Greene on-stage by himself with a keyboard synthesizer and drum machine topped off with a light show that resembled something you would experience at a local kid’s 8^th birthday party. There was a sense that Earnest knew his sound was missing something. Soon after he added his beautiful wife as back up vocalist and occasional keys, a black guy with dreads who plays percussion and takes their street cred through the roof, and finally a new bassist laying down funky simple bass lines. Top it off with a sexy sax solo every now and then like in the featured video and you have a recipe for success. But that’s what music is about, evolving, growing as an artist, finding what direction you want to take your music and that’s why I wanted to share with you Washed Out. Enjoy!

-TYC