ALBUM REVIEW: Self-Defense – I Am Waiting For You Last Summer
I AM WAITING FOR YOU LAST SUMMER is a project that really loves to make big, ambient cinematic albums filled with songs that tap into the truest human emotions. With nearly ten years of work behind them, the Russian post-rockers return with their signature blend of shoegaze and electronica with their third full length record Self-Defense, following the theme of personal isolation in a modern city scape.
Intro track Brave New World opens with alien-esque ambience, a droning theremin sort of sound that expands and spaces out into more comforting and nostalgic tones. It breaks the boundaries between the sense of cinematic wonder and small, personal feelings of hope. Short and sweet, it sets the tone for the rest of this album.
Second song In Circles has a proper beat from the off, percussive sounds naturally drive the song beneath a tinkering whirr of guitars. The combination of I AM WAITING FOR YOU LAST SUMMER’s synth influences and house inspired ambience creates some great soundscapes. A bright, highly charged bassline pulls at the second section of the track, breaking out from a traditionally guitar and keys driven shoegaze sound, and adding an element of foreboding. The heavy drone and sub-bass that arises climaxes into a dreamy, open siren call that feels like coming home, or finding clarity before pushing through into a more focused and unified final third.
In a different direction, Into the Wild is incredibly tranquil and bittersweet, leaning towards woeful, with plenty of lush guitar tones to consume, bends and sustain to last you all day. It’s classic, mournful shoegaze; trembling tones permeating into otherwise contemplative and ever layering melodies. It’s got plenty to keep you interested, but is fairly mellow all the way.
Even though it’s similarly tranquil, Je me Demand is a departure emotionally from the previous track. It’s subdued and understated, with the addition of Gdeto’s vocals, the track doesn’t require any huge complex arrangement, just a quiet symbol pattering, a dripping clean guitar and a murky melody across the keys to really show its melancholy heart. When things build to a more expressive place in the final moments, it’s a worth evolution for the pay off.
The beginning of Hidden Agenda has a perhaps more traditional chord structure than anything before, you can guess where it’s going a little before it gets there. However, it’s full of texture and original ideas in its soundscape, allowing you to build a world in your mind’s eye, and before long has morphed into a futuristic, dread filled space of dark obsession and neon dreams. I AM WAITING FOR YOU LAST SUMMER always manage to build into these dark and unwelcoming mental spaces, little places for you to find sanctuary, a heart of tenderness before moving back into a shadowy dystopia where you have to watch you back.
Another dreamy place ahead, Faux Pas has a quiet feeling of being suspended in space, with little to trouble you and less to distract you. It’s pretty much as stripped back as an electronic-based band can be, very simple movements and phrases repeating themselves or rippling back and forth like a serene sea. It’s so chilled out that you might be forgiven for being shocked awake by it’s more assertive second half, where the clarity and intention becomes sharper, louder and meaner. The homey guitars of Everything Ends are cosy and comforting, like sitting in a warm blanket and turning through the pages of dusty old photo albums. It’s a nostalgia and a longing for times past in it’s sighing expressions and heavy, lamenting chords. The moments of less acoustical driven sounds build and build into overpowering, grainy drones and waiting guitars as the overwhelming sense of despair and human anguish override the main feeling of the track.
Boiling Point has the most future-scape feel to it that we’ve come across. 80’s synthwave style bass notes, nostalgic video game motifs, and tones of films like Blade Runner 2049 and Upgrade. There’s also a feel of artists like CARPENTER BRUT and DARKFIELD, in a huge swell of sound that demonstrates I AM WAITING FOR YOU LAST SUMMER‘s association with films like Jurassic World and Captain America: Winter Soldier. All this amasses into a massive, genre bending track that melds traditional, cinematic score writing with modern dance and electro music in a fully realised and satisfying way; This is the crown jewel in this record.
Our final track Renascence has a sense of reflection, that after the crescendo of the previous track there is a time to bathe in the wake of all the came before. It’s less of a track, more of a transient wind of music, reverberating through time and echoing back on itself. Like at the end of any great feat, this ambient moment is the last breath of something beautiful, with the innocent promise of hope and a bright future.
Self-Defense is really a record of reflection, of movement between places and head spaces, in a world that exists entirely in the mind of the listener. I AM WAITING FOR YOU LAST SUMMER have a way of making their music reflect so well with personal concepts, and being as emotionally effective as any good spoken story. Their blending between ambient electronic music and expressive, humanly orientated musicality makes for quite a journey on this record.
Rating: 8/10
Self-Defense is out now via Trou Blanc.
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