When the Weeknd premiered his latest single, "Can't Feel My Face", on Apple Music back in June, its discofied groove suggested both a "Get Lucky" retread as well as a sign that some eight years on, mid-'00s Scandinavian cosmic disco might have finally wormed its way from blog backwaters on through Cadillac car commercials and into the mainstream. How else to explain a handsome, remastered-at-Abbey-Road, heavyweight gatefold sleeve reissue of an obscure nu-disco album from California's Hatchback, first released to little regard in 2008?
Originally released by Lo Recordings and !K7, Sam Grawe's debut Colors of the Sun has since been resuscitated by upstart UK reissue imprint, Be With Records, whose catalog ranges from yacht rock demiurge Ned Doheny to South African singer Letta Mbulu. But most fascinating are the albums that Be With zero in on from the '00s, when compact discs remained the medium of conveyance and pressing up vinyl was cost-prohibitive. So far, Be With has done vinyl reissues of everything from the Streets' A Grand Don't Come for Free to a Wilco side project to Cassie's prophetic minimalist nu-R&B classic.
Where Hatchback's debut fits in amid this eclectic, baffling roster is hard to gauge. Even as a fan of everything nu-disco/Balearic of that era, I'm only familiar with Hatchback's music via a 17-minute remix courtesy of Prins Thomas (these remixes were almost de rigueur circa 2007). His music occasionally recalls the vintage keyboard squiggles of Prins Thomas & Lindstrøm or else that of Klaus Schulze.
Perhaps Grawe's perspective from Northern California gives such German and European electronic influences a touch of sunshine and open air here, a surfer's mentality informing both his Hatchback persona as well as duo Windsurf. "Everything Is Neu" might wear its krautrock heritage on its sleeve, but rather than the Autobahn, it suggests a leisurely drive down the PCH, detouring from that motorik beat with piano-laced breakdowns suggestive of Michael Rother's post-Neu! albums. "Comets" and "White Diamond" both begin as Cluster homages, before Grawe astutely adds other layers—a laidback guitar figure, a contemplative synth melody—that take the tracks into more rarefied air. And had Boards of Canada decamped for the West Coast from Scotland, they might have made something like "Closer to Forever".
In hindsight, it's easy to see how the album might have not gotten a fair shake, favoring low-key melodic turns and gentle movements rather than the grander moves of his contemporaries. Outside of a 2013 single, there hasn't been much heard from Hatchback since 2011's follow-up, Zeus & Apollo. A quick search turned up the fact that Grawe worked first at Dwell and now serves as editorial director for furniture manufacturer Herman Miller, whose ergonomic Aeron chair I'm currently sitting in as I type this. It makes a certain kind of sense that Grawe gravitated toward modern architecture and design, in that Colors of the Sun suggests an astute sense of craft, even if its expert design becomes almost imperceptible due to its functionality.
