Simply pronounced "oh." That’s how Christopher Dexter Greenspan, a young man from San Francisco, has been calling himself since 2008.
The project results in a little more than a couple of EPs and then gifts us with this creature, titled "Without Your Love", in the recent 2013. Released under a record label that he co-owns called Nihjgt Feelings, based in Turkey though.
The final product of what is agglomerated in this first full-length is called Witch House, a very fresh sound that emerged around the same time as the formation of this project, making Greenspan one of its major exponents. I would not just define him as a DJ.
This new genre involves the use of slowed down and/or stopped Hip-Hop beats (often changing tempo), eerie samples, extensive use of equally eerie synthesizers, and a massive use of ethereal voices (mostly female) and some Drone here and there.
The result obtained in this experience is a rotation of feelings, frequent mood swings. Solitude, melancholy, terror, hypnagogic paralysis, relief.
"Without Your Love" gives you no respite. You must always remain on alert. It can offer temporary refuge or make you an easy prey.
You are completely alone in the woods, inside an abandoned house. You are lost and will have to wait for the arrival of a new day to find your way home, but the night is still young... close the shutters immediately.
Paranoia is punctual (and so begins "Sirens"). But it's only the first few minutes and there is no use panicking right away and you scroll through old photos on your almost drained phone ("Stay Here", "3:51 AM", "Without Your Love"). A couple of hours have passed but the memories of a past love make half-open wounds burn ("On It").
Tears certainly don’t help and here they come right on time: distressing whispers and icy winds ("Crossed Wires", "Mouchette"). The walls and windows shake, panic is not indifferent... close your eyes ("The South", "Misunderstood").
You are paralyzed, you no longer want to open those eyes but by concentrating on that chaos of incomprehensible sounds ("5:51 AM") you understand that something is happening outside. You glimpse rays of light and a new day is dawning and, who knows, maybe even a small hope in the heart of a soul tormented by old loves ("Across A Sea").
What is certain, as a wise man once said, "everything passes."
Highly recommended for nighttime listening with headphones.
Loading comments slowly