Skelesys
Fading Echoes
Pinkman
Berlin-based one-man project Skelesys has been plying solid and engaging club-focused darkwave for a few years via singles and remixes, but for Damian Shilman’s first proper LP the formula’s been changed into something notably different, and dare I say earthier. Fading Echoes is still a beat-driven listen with plenty of dancefloor appeal, but rather than filling itself to the brim with heavy leads or atmospherics, a minimalist strain of rock featuring twangy summer sunset guitar and crooning vocals instead carries the LP into a hazy but also decidedly grounded minimalism.
Lead single “Pictures In My Mind”, featuring some tag team work with Curses’ Luca Venezia (with whom Shilman’s worked previously), is as solid a mission statement as any, buttressing immediate chiming synths with roaming guitar and rock vocal harmonies. Turkey’s Affet Robot is perhaps as close of a current comparison as could be made, but that still doesn’t point to the dusty warmth that emerges over “Pictures In My Mind”. That rock-focused but sparse aesthetic is held over the rest of the record: Shilman’s vocals and a rueful, listless guitar slowly rotate in and out of the spotlight over a minimal lope on the languid “In The Dark”, while the stoic and weary “Digital Ghosts” suggests both airy dreampop and sullen neofolk.
Not all such gambits pay off on Fading Echoes, though. “Grey Days”‘ homage to classic French coldwave is spot on, and there’s some solid punch to the drums, but the atmosphere isn’t enough to account for a lack of a hook or direction, and at least one or two other tracks feel similarly underwritten. But I have something of a feeling that these misfires in restraint are the sort of tradeoff a project like Skelesys is willing to make in order to absolutely nail the overarching sound and mood they’re clearly aiming for. And when everything comes together, as on “Golden Eyes”, one can see why. Its laid back groove, suggesting The Jesus And Mary Chain tackling “The Boys Of Summer”, is charming enough, but all of the tiny tics and flourishes which ornament it – Shilman dropping his baritone an octave at just the right time, a guitar line that shimmers like a Mann film, what might be a couple of muted sax skronks in the background – carry it into a slowburn majesty unlike anything else you’ll hear in darkwave this year.
It’s no secret that the broader dark music world is positively awash in darkwave right now, for better and for worse. Between the established giants and the mediocre dregs, it can be difficult for an emerging project to establish itself, but Fading Echoes does just that for Skelesys, giving it a sound and identity fairly distinct from much else happening in the field. It makes for an unexpected and welcome statement of arrival for a project that’s been waiting in the wings for a while.
