Washed Out: High Times



Runner Ups:



Best Coast: Where The Boys Are


Yarn Owl: Tiny Dots


Pure Ecstasy: Future Nostalgia



Washed Outs’ Ernest Greene managed to put out a pretty flawless tape. The music is described of as being a reminder “of a vaguely retro sound makes a pretty hip appeal to nostalgia”. This tape, for me, was the most ‘complete’ physical form of the genre dubbed ‘chillwave’ via the hipster runoff. The track ‘Belong’ then followed by ‘Clap intro’ leads into a great introduction to the tape. Side B of the tape is reminiscent of perhaps some RJD2 influence. What is even better is that you can buy the second run of the tapes on white from Ernest Greene himself. I feel bad for those poor suckers on ebay paying 40 dollars for this tape.

Pure Ecstasy Easy b/w Baby



Runner ups:



1.)Washed Out Feel It All Around 7”


2.)Girls’ Laura b/w Oh Boy 7”


3.)Toro Y Mois’ Blessa b/w 109 7”

I was happy that this came in a few days ago so it would be eligible for my 7” of the year. I would say that the ‘surf rock’ genre came back this year, with bands like Girls, Best Coast, and Real Estate all emulating this sound using different sub-genres to separate them from the rest.



Pure Ecstasys’ lo-fi surf-pop sound is most closely related to that of Best Coasts. What separates Pure Ecstasy from the lovely Bethany Cosantino is how the vocals and instruments ‘seam’ together to form an overall natural lo-fi sound. Don’t get me wrong, I love Best Coast, but for different reasons.



Evidently, the plant that printed this 7” made a mistake on the label, and Easy was Baby and Baby was Easy, so they refunded me eight dollars and are sending me another copy with the mistake fixed. So I guess this means I got my hands on a super rare 7”, too.

Chocolate Bobka posts two Marissa Nadler downloads