Bad Vibes is a collection of colourful, tinplate toy butterflies, whose hinges creak and fly wheels wind down erratically.
[Release page] A member of the genial-sounding Friends Of Friends posse in Los Angeles, Henry Laufer (aka Shlohmo) is a visual artist and self-taught assembler of odd beats and mushy audio, inspired by lo-fi electronica, rhythm’n’blues and screwed tapes, the woozy hip-hop of choice of Houston’s cough syrup aficionados. Bad Vibes is a collection of colourful, tinplate toy butterflies, whose hinges creak and fly wheels wind down erratically. An essential ingredient is a lazily strummed electric slide guitar, which on a track like ”Places” is all you need to put you in the mood for a relaxing time in the shade and on the closer, “Same Time,” to enjoy break time in the robot repair shop on Moon Station Alpha.
There are a host of vocals on the album, almost all of them contented sighs. Its title is puzzling, unless it refers to one of his homemade instruments, because they may not be pristine but his softly rubbed, snapped, tapped and clapped rhythms are an oddball treat, as are jerryrigged instruments like the “synthesizer” on “Anywhere But Here.” You really become submerged in the over-saturated organ of “Sink,” a dreamy, tropical way to go under. On later tracks including “Trapped Inside a Burning House” and “Your Stupid Face,” the vocals are more like inarticulate howls drenched in distorted, lame-legged guitar, an incursion into illbience. These must be the “bad” vibes.
Trip hop that trips over its own feet but in Chaplinesque fashion, always regains its balance with a flourish and a mustache wiggle.
Bad Vibes is available on Friends Of Friends. [Release page]
