Alec Feld, a young New York native who goes by Expensive Looks, earned good notices a while back for "Nothing More", a radiant song about loneliness. At this point, you could be forgiven for feeling sleepy whenever you hear hazy synthesizers mixed with a wayward drum pattern. But even though it arrived hopelessly late to the chillwave party, "Nothing More" was just too sticky to discount. It helped that Feld's voice, which wouldn't sound out of place on a Wolf Parade or Animal Collective anthem, was strong and commanding. But on Expensive Looks' debut LP, Dark Matters, the single is something of an outlier. It turns out that Feld's interest in that kind of immediacy is limited, which accounts for both Dark Matters' appeal and limitations.
Feld's music has a ravey, enervated grandeur, but the glare of style sometimes seems like a way to mask the lack of substance. Dark Matters feels like the solution to an equation whose variables include Toro Y Moi, Neon Indian, Nite Jewel, Bibio, Baths, and Elite Gymnastics-- a timely concoction of lo-fi disco, corroded analog textures, submerged bass, chipmunk soul, and granulated funk. No one's saying that Feld is ripping anyone off-- this stuff is all just in the air. But that doesn't change the fact that this sound is currently feeling threadbare. That's why my favorite track on Dark Matters is also the weirdest: opener "Your Dreams Our Week", which is divisible by only itself. Each stem of the track feels like an independent process, and you get the sense they could slide apart at any moment. The result is a track with genuine tension, willfulness, and originality. In this strange way, Feld's music may be best at its worst. Errors enliven it.
This kind of audacity doesn't surface again until the last track, "Vanishers"-- which, unfortunately, is a senseless mess; the only seriously bad stretch on an otherwise charming record. The songs between "Nothing More" and "Vanishers" are pleasant to zone out to, with potent moments of dark euphoria, but hard to remember. With the possible exception of "Moving Visions", the pop songs fall short of the heights of "Nothing More", while the little interstitials feel random. It's good fun but never pushes against anything, which is no fatal flaw, but no revelation either.
