My Review: Fun With Ether - A Dirty Kind Of Clean

 Fun With Ether - A Dirty Kind Of Clean

It would take a dreamlike discipline to bring it to life inside the powerfully spring-flowery textures of Texans Fun With Ether. With this heavenly soundscape they rightfully enter the core of the heart and the labyrinthine paths of the mind, for a combination of energy and warmth that evaporates all forms of weakness. The intertwining guitars, the rhythmic parts of a drumming that smells of Indie and Alternative, the bass that pushes and defines make all this a northern lights at whose vision Shoegaze applauds and thanks. 

A second album that, in comparison to Tanned Skin, Light Eyes, projects the sound at the centre of the artistic project, highlighting excellent technical skills with the ability to juggle melodies that surround all the characteristics of the Shoegaze of ordinance, augmenting everything with an infectious freshness. 

Sophia Ortiz has a warm voice, which swirls between stars and dreams, in a circuit of references, managing to stay on the same level without difficulty. And as always, Gilbert Godoy is the craftsman of these enchanting sweet ramblings, an author who deserves profound recognition.

Listening to this set of gems one gets the impression of the transition from adolescence, with its twilight, to adulthood.

Numerous chromatic situations make for a truly interesting approach to the consumption of these tracks that generates multiple visions as a legitimate consequence. The whole thing smells of a Herculean feat, with the vapours of the guitars that, apart from being totally sweet, are also able to display a decisive edge, shifting the risk of unnecessary chaos elsewhere. Here is the magnificence of the album: a serious, well-structured work, with the attention that makes artistic expression a pleasant inner gain. The musical notes are pinches and spring flights, while the voice is a candle that defeats fear and gives softness. The drumming is immersed in the simplicity with which it gets rid of the hiccups to clear the throat, while the bass is proof that the shoegaze school, with this instrument, reveals the efficiency that governs the whole beautifully. The guitars? Tears of rotating silk that know how to soften and inflame, tightened in a mode that knows Post-Punk and Darkwave impetuses (Better By Noon), but without ever overdoing it. And then, in the other episodes, they unleash their imagination without smearing. With liquid textures that bathe the listener in emotion.

This is a record that succeeds in making one think, in distancing itself from others by its mystical aura, in becoming an attempt to be a sparkling dose of bravado with a naivety that is to be blessed. It takes up residence in these clods of light that have fallen from the sky while everything, wisely, materialises in a film that, starting in the 90s, visits the territoriality of adult souls. Those who love the crossover of alternative with shoegaze have found something memorable...

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

5th March 2023

https://funwithether.bandcamp.com/album/a-dirty-kind-of-clean