Washed Out – High Times (2009) [Mirror Universe Tapes] // Grade: A

People love a reluctant star and Ernest Greene, the mastermind behind hazy electropop act Washed Out, is the year’s most unassuming buzz darling. Happier making tapes in his newly relocated Georgia home than signing record deals, Greene keeps his distribution DIY and sends fans into a frenzied hunt over his limited to 200 copies cassette, High Times.

Out on two limited runs of 100 cassettes on South Carolina’s Mirror Universe Tapes, copies of High Times were gone faster than they mysteriously arrived. But luckily for us we live in the digital age, and just as quickly as the hard copies were purchased, they were ripped and met with the eardrums of the internet at large. The nine track release extends Greene’s gauzy, Baeleric disco-tinted electropop. Where Greene’s Life of Leisure EP favored slowly drifting, heavily filtered somber melodies, High Times is a lean towards the upbeat. Washed Out fans won’t find any of Life of Leisure‘s stylistic tendencies missing, but rather reworked, drifting amongst layers of sound clips and swirling atmospherics. Life of Leisure‘s sleepyhead vocal melodies may have hooked the public, but with High Times, Greene challenges the listener to look past his voice, and get lost within his compositions.

Lush with cinematic overtones, finding the beauty in High Times is a prize reserved for those willing to listen closely. “Belong” makes use of a polka beat juxtaposed against oceanic waves of synths, “Phone Call” relies on found samples to recreate the radio jingle soundtracks of eras past and “It’s Kate’s Birthday” is a horn-laced, echoing funk number that sounds like a lo-fi reinterpretation of a Cibo Matto instrumental.

High Times isn’t as much a deviation from Life of Leisure as it is a complement. Pairing the two releases together into a listening session provides the essential Washed Out primer. Whether Greene eventually folds under the pressure of his own talent remains to be seen, but I for one hope he keeps making music in his bedroom forever.

- Scrooge McFuck