Entry 298 - Remember - Show Me, Enlighten Me, Love Me

 

At what point does an artist completely move out of the genre that they helped pioneer? In the case of Remember, ルートバックホーム was an incredible ambient dreampunk album. It helped solidify the genre as a separate entity from vaporwave all together. Remember has been evolving with every release, with Deep Dive... showing what can happen to the genre when mixed with deep dubstep. Now however, I don't think that we can even include Remember's latest release with the dreampunk genre.

To my ears Show Me, Enlighten Me, Love Me has crossed over from a dreampunk album with deep dubstep influence, to a deep dubstep album with dreampunk influence. We've gone from an atmospheric album that contains interesting beats and sound design to a beat driven album that features sound design and instrumental interplay over atmosphere.

Let's talk about that sound design aspect for a little bit. I have to say I'm very impressed with the instrumentals on the album. They sound deep and rich, and while the bass is the dominant feature of the album it is done so in a controlled and intentional manner. There is nothing sloppy about the bass or really any of the instrumentation.

Towards the end of the album we do get a bit of a call back to the previous album. Miles From the Coast is a meditative track that features no percussion at all. It paints a vivid and dark picture of a futuristic landscape. It acts as a transition track for the album as well.

Prior to Miles from the Coast everything is highly beat driven, whereas after the album take a more atmospheric term. There is still percussion but the atmosphere on Why Bother and Parting The Difference seems to be a bit more of the focus than it was on the first few tracks.

Remember is one of my favorite artists to come out of dreampunk. No two albums are exactly the same, and knowing Jude the next album is either going to be further down the rabbit hole or something else completely. I'm looking forward to hearing what he comes up with next. In the mean time though this is an excellent album to tide me over.