(02.24.04) Somewhere between Lusine icl and Beefcake is a tiny plot of ground which Benny Boysen is cultivating as his own. Operating under the pseudonym of Hecq, A Dried Youth is his first release and it is a record that wipes itself across a broad spread of moods and genres. Spread out across twenty tracks, A Dried Youth is an effort by Boysen to capture the fleeting and changing moods which make up the artist’s daily life.
A Dried Youth is a hodge-podge, a record which never quite settles into any single framework: complicated IDM beats scamper throughout the songs; the coldly mechanical nature of computer-driven programming leaches warmth from the ambient washes; melodies persist long enough to voice their theme, but never stay so long that they unfold any variations. Boysen keeps the focus fairly tight — this is, ultimately, an abstract beat record — and never quite strays into the outer genre-mashing realm of Beefcake’s musical schizophrenia.
Boysen’s methodology for these tracks is one of textured brevity, an adherence to the maxim of never boring your listener by looping your beats and melodic elements so interminably that they feel bludgeoned by the endlessness of it all. I’m reminded of a time-lapse film of an open living room window. The scene is static but remains engaging as the light changes throughout the day, throwing different patterns and textures across the furniture and carpet. You can dip in and take any three to five minute loop of this film and it would be fascinating in its own loop. It would be different from material taken from the hour previous and hour yet to come, and yet each piece still contain the same elements: the couch, the window, the light. You may not distinctly remember the play of light through the window in a week or month and that sense of fleeting ephemerality exists in Hecq’s A Dried Youth as well. You may not be able to specifically recall Boysen’s work in a week or month, but that won’t stop you from saying, “Hey now, I like this!” when someone puts the record on; A solid debut.
A Dried Youth is OUT NOW on Kaleidoskop.
- Kaleidoskop
- Hecq
- Bad Karma (Review: Oct. 2005)
- Scatterheart (Review: Dec. 2004)
