Day-to-day life isn't really much of a gimmick, but when Zane Reynolds works out his musical impulses, that's often the context he finds himself in: making mixtapes in high school and leaving cassette copies of them at Goodwill or In-N-Out Burger, lacing EPs with distinct local references and provincial vibes in the titles (Selected Valley Works, New West Coast, Neighborhood Archives), or composing an album, last year's The Dwell, with a strip-mall Starbucks as both his headquarters and his inspiration. His SFV Acid project is Cali as hell, and wants you to know it—the SFV stands for San Fernando Valley, and as names go SFV Acid might as well double as his subgenre.
It's easy to see such referential scene-setting presented as tongue-in-cheek, especially when it's applied to purely instrumental music. But something's evoked, intentionally or otherwise, when an artist presents extra-musical associations, so even without any knowledge of Amber's Stuff's backstory—allegedly a breakup album—a scan down the tracklisting of Reynolds' latest reveals the inventory of a vividly remembered relationship. Song titles like "Pink iPhone", "Bejeweled iMac", and "Vanilla Musk" suggest that Amber's Stuff possesses a distinctly personal weight, giving enough of a picture of what those associations might mean.
That said, the titles are more evocative of a specific place and time than the music is. Originally self-released as a CDR in 2011, the associations of this music might linger, but the sound and the structure already feel like an older version of his style, a box of memorabilia leafed through briefly before moving on. Where The Dwell was an off-kilter, jittery, indirect route towards deep and ruminative deconstructions of DIY 4/4 fare, Amber's Stuff is more of a direct nod towards his sources, with clear lines of acid house, boogie funk, and electro running through it. If that makes it a fair bit less subversive than The Dwell, that's actually to its benefit, proving that SFV Acid's music can still possess resonance regardless.
There might not be much pranksterish Valley-culture affectations here, but there's still some lively 8-bit color. The Pole Position exhaust note of "Cheddar Mercedes" buzzes through a staccato hi-hat/clap pattern and sinks into a knowingly new wave mode; it could've come across as cheesily arch if it wasn't for the odd, aching lilt to the chiming keyboards that provide the melody. The reflective downtempo ambiance of cuts like "Pink iPhone", "Video Journeys", and "Art and Drawings" reveal a finesse with lighter-touch nods to 1980s R&B and experimental electronics that shimmer with low-intensity energy, while closer "And No Stress" is proof that even with a basis of familiar, traditional acid house, Reynolds can spin off from those long-established 303 tropes into denser, more unpredictable turns towards free-flight freakouts. It's not world-beating innovation at work here, but reflecting back on the good times really doesn't have to be.
