reescha, comprised of Nick Huntington and Michael McGroarty of San Fernando, California, garnered attention with last year’s Slower Than Church Music, a recording of largely downtempo, retrograde electronica reminiscent of artists like Casino vs. Japan, Marumari, and Boards of Canada. Eschewing virtuoso displays of instrumental prowess, the songs on Slower Than Church Music exude an undeniable charm, in spite of their modest degree of conceptual and compositional ambition. One might think of Freescha in general as a less artistically ambitious version of Isan.


The group’s third full-length, Whats Come Inside of You (sic) is a rather curious follow-up. On the one hand, its broader commercial sound suggests a calculated pitch for a larger audience, while, conversely, the fleeting duration of many tracks gives it a fragmentary feel which mitigates against the recording coalescing into a coherent whole in the manner of its predecessor. In addition to recurrent echoes of Boards of Canada et al., this latest recording, with its preponderance of vocodered vocals and concentration on conventional song structures, now strongly calls to mind Air’s Moon Safari and even Daft Punk. Regardless of any musical assessment, one’s immediate impression is compromised by the vulgar graphic concept, its tasteless illustrations too evocative of airbrushed porn. A sex theme pervades throughout, courtesy of the images, song titles, and occasional instances of erotic sighing and orgasmic breathing, although the precise relevance of the theme remains only vaguely defined.


How might one characterize the typical Freescha track? It’s mid-tempo, laden with simple, squelchy beats, taut bass lines, and hazy, billowing masses of chiming, lo-fi keyboards, in particular piano, retro synths, and church-like organs. The mood is unthreatening and the sounds inviting, although a smattering of tracks exude a melancholy, dirge-like quality (‘Laser Love’). The Boards of Canada influence is once again present in the bucolic keyboard melodies of ‘Baby Maker,’ ‘Too Close to Try,’ and ‘The Sun is Still.’ Vocals occasionally appear but are typically altered, rendering the lyrics at times indecipherable (perhaps a blessing, given simple-minded lyrics like ‘The sun is still high/It makes me feel this good”). Sometimes the vocals are submerged (‘Laser Love’), slurred and distorted (‘Radio Heart’), or, most often, filtered by vocoder treatments (‘Smurf Shoe,’ ‘Baby Maker,’ ‘The Sun is Still,’ ‘Come Good’) in a manner that most clearly evokes Air. Beats are straightforwardly 4/4 although ‘Drive Me Wide’ begins in an odd 9/4 meter before reverting to 4/4. Freescha occasionally threatens to invade more adventurous territory, evidenced by the Autechre-flavoured cut-up drum treatments that appear in the middle of ‘Watcha Gonna Go For It?’ and the detonating static percussive effects in ‘Star Black,’ but these forays are brief and tentative. In sum, Whats Come Inside of You is pleasant enough, not quite as cohesive as its predecessor, and definitely not groundbreaking. But for fans of mid-tempo electronica in the vein of Casino vs. Japan and the synth-based pop of Air, Freescha’s latest will provide satisfying listening, at least until the group’s more innovative brethren appear with their new offerings.