TREVOR SOMETHING - Microwaves

Once again this musician and producer from Florida sticks to a kind of self-imposed calendar, releasing his usual yearly output under the Trevor Something name. It's a fully independent project, active since 2014 and for some time now available not only digitally but also on CD, vinyl and cassette through In Your Brain LLC, the label Trevor himself founded and runs since 2016.

“Microwaves” gathers nine tracks in a little over thirty minutes, immediately showcasing a compositional maturity that manages to break away from the most well-worn clichés of the much-celebrated synthwave revival that exploded over the past decade: this album shows greater depth and a more pronounced darkness, helped along by the leaden melodies drawn by the artist's voice, which in places can even be compared to the recent, commendable output of Canada's Robert Alfons aka Tr/st. We get a firsthand feel for this on the opening track “You Are My Obsession”, a terrific dark tune steeped in pure sensuality (the launch video moves between provocative girls and the inevitable neon lights), soon followed by the alluring “False Reality”, which also makes us dance in the heart of a city sunk in night.

The album's mood keeps moving steadily in this direction, thriving on the contrast between the cold synthetic fabric of the compositions and Trevor Something's warm, enveloping voice, which feels just as at home in more relaxed passages like “Living To Die” or in the splendid “No One Cares”, the latter steeped in a magical atmosphere heavy with melancholy.

Even an airier composition like “Do It To Me”, though it leans more heavily on Trevor Something's recent past, still manages to find its place within the album, thanks precisely to a dark aftertaste that holds everything together nicely across the record's full length (a skeleton that comes fully into the open in the intriguing darkwave temptations of “You're So Ugly”, another gem well worth savoring). That spirit resurfaces forcefully on the closing “Reverse The Ghost (Your Obsession)”, a fittingly introspective ending that glides gently over the usual effective synthetic carpet.

The formula at work on “Microwaves” thus finds its state of grace, delivering Trevor Something's most mature work yet, a musician who, unlike some of his peers in the field, has refused to settle for mere surface. “Microwaves” is urban music to savor during the quietest of nights, when distances fill the streets of the city.

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07/05/2020