"Despite stagnation and passivity being the key themes of the album, Into the Doldrums is brimming with collaborative, genre-melding energy."
When trying to describe Into the Doldrums – the debut album of Xavier Bacash’s Now Always Fades project – lots of similar, hard-to-define words initially come to mind: floaty, misty, dreamy, airy, hazy. Whatever one you want you use, it’s music that lets you pause and breathe. This chilled, reflective ambience persists throughout the 35 minute runtime, but when you look under the surface you realise there’s an exciting amount of experimentation going on in Into the Doldrums.
Released through his own imprint Northern Underground Records, Melbourne-born producer Bacash has been churning out EPs and albums under his Sonny Ism pseudonym since 2017. Now Always Fades sees Bacash strip away the poppier, bouncier side of his music, and instead lean more heavily on live instrumentation. As well as being a term for a depressive period of stagnation, the album name comes from a windless band encircling the equator that sailors call “the doldrums”, where the north east and south east winds converge – a fitting name, for an album that sees two often separate musical stylings collide.
The live elements range from trip-hop snares, plodding bass lines and twinkly fingerstyle guitar loops. You get snippets of all sorts of genres popping up here and there – shoegaze, moody post-punk, psychedelia – but the electronic backbone unites all the components. On ‘A Pain I Used To Feel’, the chugging bass and jangling guitar create a trippy, Still Corners-esque tone, especially with Lili Halls’ ethereal tones. At the same time, you have distorted swirls from pads and synths to add a subtle atmosphere. There are crisp Madchester drums on ‘Mindflower’, while on ‘Mayhem’, the distant synthesiser lines provide a slow, sun-baked tranquillity.
The resulting effect is that fuzzy, unplaceable feeling of being “in the doldrums”, which the album’s back art – a blurred photo of Bacash riding an escalator – also conveys perfectly. There are moments where the pace picks up slightly – the drums are livelier on ‘Sleepy Head’, with zooming flourishes on the keys and bouncing synth patterns. Even when you reach the minimalist breakdown, though, you never stray too far away from that introspective downtempo that runs throughout – like a fuzzy nostalgia tinged with sadness.
Bacash has frequently utilised his own vocals on previous projects, and does so here too; his layered refrain on ‘Close to Greatness’ creates a swirling, psychedelic feel that wouldn’t be out of place on a Jagwar Ma track, and there are shades of early Tame Impala to his reverberating drone on ‘Sleepy Head’. However, for Into the Doldrums, Bacash also brought in fellow Melbourne-based vocalists Lili Hall (known for her work with Squaring Circles) and Tilly Vickers-Willis. Part of the motivation behind this was so that Bacash could “collaborate with other vocalists… and open up new possibilities and realms of artistic creation”.
Paired with the trip-hop beats and laidback soundscapes, it’s hard not to think of the likes of Portishead or The XX whenever Hall and Vickers-Willis take to the mic. Due to Bacash’s carefully crafted production, the transition between all three vocalists is seamless, and the different voices complement one another and feel like they belong side-by-side.
Actual lyrics can be hard to make out on Into the Doldrums, and when you do catch a line it’s often cryptic, thought-provoking: “Shadows dancing in my way…”; “Listen to darkness…”; “It’s in the open… it’s in the water… taking me over…”. This is most noticeable nearer the end of the album, when Vickers-Willis tags in on vocals; on ‘24hrs’, lyrics fade away and what you’re left with is a wailing crescendo of sound, bouncing around the echo-chamber and taking on a meaning that transcends words.
Despite stagnation and passivity being the key themes of the album, Into the Doldrums is brimming with collaborative, genre-melding energy. The Now Always Fades project seems to be the start of a new chapter in Bacash’s musical journey. “I like the idea that in the future, although I might be the common denominator as the artist, I can keep working with a changing landscape of vocalists to keep the listener guessing as they work through the music,” he says, “Kind of like how a director approaches their films.” Whoever Bacash collabs with next, it’s clear they’ll be in a safe pair of hands.
‘Into the Doldrums’ is out now via Northern Underground Records. Order a copy from Bandcamp.
TRACKLIST
1. Into The Doldrums
2. Mindflower
3. Close To Greatness
4. Mayhem
5. A Pain I Used To Feel
6. Hybris
7. Sleepy Head
8. 24hrs
9. Branching Moments