With the rise of electronic dance music, the genre has become dominant in mainstream music today. Beyond EDM looks to move away from the dance floor and into your earbuds, bringing you artists and genres to calm your senses and vibes, because you can't always turn up.
With the calendar turning to November, cuffing season is shaking those who are single out of their Halloween hangover. All the party clothes find a spot to hibernate until March while the cute couples do romantic fall activities that just feel embarrassing to do solo (do it anyway). Luckily, this Thanksgiving month has produced a different kind of cuffing development in a joint project between established indie producers Lydmor & Bon Homme to produce a chilled out slow romance album “Seven Dreams of Fire,” which is due out Nov. 6.
Jenny Rossander (Lydmor) and Tomas Høffding (Bon Homme) both come from Danish backgrounds and reside in Copenhagen. Rossander’s interloping pop sound and light voice with Høffding’s fluttering dance songs and deep raspy singing didn’t come out of the blue. The pair has collaborated on multiple Bon Homme tracks such as “The Optimist” and “Daybreaker” from Høffding’s last record, “A Life Less Fancy.” These moments are sunny and cheery even though the sombre underlying lyrical messages contradict the overly summer feel. It's like browsing Hollister, the most poorly lit retail store to ever exist, and buying its overpriced beach clothes.
The new record flexes a steeper lean toward dark and romantic at the same time. The pair has ditched the xylophone that appeared front and center on a plethora of moments of “A Life Less Fancy” and stripped the production back to just the bare necessities with “The Things We Do For Love.” The synthesizer presents chords in an exhausted manner, only to be bolstered by the drums to pick it up off the ground. That isn’t to say this song is a boring listen, but it isn’t trying to drag listeners from the couch and make them fist pump into oblivion. Instead, the instrumentals sit on the fringe of dancing, giving a warm hug to the listener. The music is fine with letting you sit on the couch in your thoughts but the more attention it receives, the more it drags you in.
“Dream of Fire” establishes a more urgent pace with the drums having a greater gallop to them, but at no point do they invade personal space. The keys hang out in the background for you to eavesdrop on as you continue on with your activities. Like any party, the background sounds grow and gain in intensity while more noise begins to overwhelm and fill the empty space of track. As the momentum builds to a point of exploding, someone opens the door and the noise fades away softly, leaving you with the empty space you started with.
The vocal work hangs out, again, on the fringe of being dominating musings of love and life, and another layer in the music. Each voice exists so far from the other; the timbre they produce is unique without being off-putting. While never addressing each other directly, the conversation between the two communicates a great deal of love and distaste in every moment.
These combined performances invoke an image of angry lovers calmly discussing why they love, yet are so upset with one another. It feels like a moment among street lights between rush hour and sleep. On that fringe, that space between Christmas snow and summer sun, and the contrast between being in love and upset with someone, Lydmor & Bon Hommes’ music exists.
Related links:
Beyond EDM: Sorrow the soundtrack for your next break-up
Beyond EDM: Nym's 'Convex' is just the right amount of chill
Reach the reporter at dloche@asu.edu or follow @DMLoche on Twitter.
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