Baths – Cerulean

Baths - Cerulean

Baths is the newest musical project of Will Wiesenfeld, an LA-based musician who has previously produced music under the name [Post-Foetus], and Cerulean is his debut release under this new name. It’s a record that, in its diversity and occasionally surprising twists and turns, resists categorisation – I’ve heard it discussed under the ubiquitous chillwave/glo-fi tag, but Cerulean has more depth than that genre’s superficial nostalgia, and I’ve even seen comparisons with wonky/downtempo stuff. However, Wiesenfeld seems like too much of an individual for broad comparisons – Cerulean feels like the product of mundane circumstances and escapism (it was created in his suburban bedroom), filtered or magnified through a varied, rich array of quite specific influences. It’s the latest in a line of intricate records that evoke other, imagined worlds, from Owen Pallett’s Heartlands and ceo’s White Magic, to Flying Lotus’ Cosmogramma and Bibio’s Ambivalence Avenue.

Unusually for an artist concerned with songs made up of collages of beats and samples, Wiesenfeld’s voice also features prominently on Cerulean. It’s surprisingly versatile and he often multi-tracks it to the extent that you could be forgiven for forgetting that this is the musical project of just one person. This is how the record opens, with a choir of voices forming the intro for ‘Apologetic Shoulderblades’ before it accelerates with stuttering rhythms. The beats on Cerulean reflect Wiesenfeld’s wide musical palette, gesturing at different times towards IDM, dubstep, R’n’B and hiphop, but never settling in one place too long in a manner that’s comparable to Gold Panda and Deadelus, one of his collaborators.

It’s the unique touches that set Cerulean apart – the record includes samples that sound personalised, as if they come from Wiesenfeld’s own world of films, comics and day-to-day existence. Weaved in amongst the largely introspective lyrics, they help convey the highly personal nature of Baths’ music. However, the inward looking elements are constantly tempered by other aspects – the drifting melodies on ‘Lovely Bloodflow’ are backed by handclaps and brittle beats that contribute to a sense of unease.

Wiesenfeld manages to weave all these sporadic elements into a few blissful pop songs – ‘Maximalist’, with its crowd of voice and samples, settles into a heady melodic groove, while ‘Animals’ combines samples of children with a lilting melody and Four Tet-esque percussion – in fact Kieran Hebden’s Rounds feels like a fitting comparison for the tone and flow of Cerulean as a whole. ‘Hall’ is another highlight, its loops and melodies sound like they’ve been glazed with a kind of nostalgic sheen. The nostalgia is constantly pulled back to reality though, particularly on the exquisite, soulful ‘Plea’.

Another standout is ‘Indoorsy’, which begins with stuttering beats and lyrics that address Wiesenfeld’s working methods: “It’s a breezy, beautiful day/… The air is cool and there are plenty of things to do/So I’ll pull my curtains closed/And in the absence of the world, compose”. From here, the track surfs on a wave of distortion, brilliantly capturing a sense of the solitary creative process and the swirl of ideas. And this is just what Baths has going for him, even if the sheer amount of ideas on Cerulean can seem a little too much to take in at first. However, this well-paced record rewards repeated listens and pulls you in to Wiesenfeld’s world, with its myriad of real and imagined voices. A glitchy, dazzling, thoughtful debut.

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