2012, Ghostly

VINYL FORMAT. Includes two-panel art sleeve, art labels, inner art vinyl jackets and download card! Recorded in Dear's home studio and mixed at Nicolas Vernhes' Rare Book Room studios in Brooklyn, Beams evokes a day-lit dream world at once strange and familiar. While the album's dancefloor-ready tempos, major keys, and sun-warmed synths signal Beams as the lighter, brighter response to its predecessor, closer inspection reveals a squirming mass of oddball details. Dear's latest productions creak and groan like anxious organisms, with slivers of guitar, electric bass, and drum kit darting in and out among the synths and samples. Beams delights in thoughtful leftfield juxtapositions: the leathery, handclap-heavy funk of "Up & Out" barrels into the anxious wig-out of "Overtime"; the dark, burbling dirge "Shake Me" sets the stage for the melancholic simmer of album closer "Temptation."