Energy Slime

Energy Slime

Planet Perfect

We Are Time

***When so much in the world is broken and upsetting, why not make a sparkling DIY pop album with your spouse? That’s the resigned yet euphoric spirit of Planet Perfect, the debut full-length from Vancouver duo Energy Slime (Jay Arner and Jessica Delisle). Recorded amidst personal loss and worldwide lockdowns, the couple sought comfort in the place they’ve always found it: music. On Planet Perfect, they build a glittering universe across 10 tracks of skewed art pop and proggy electro-funk, finding refuge in a landscape of analogue synthesizers and harmonized hooks. The album's catchiest, most upbeat moments are laden with subliminal melancholy—but even at its darkest, sunshine still peeks out from between the clouds.

Energy Slime

New Dimensional

Mint

Alongside the starry-eyed synth-pop and minor-key melancholia of his self-titled debut, Vancouver’s Jay Arner has mastered the art of deadpan absurdity. Oddball jokes and non-sequiturs linger around the edges of computer-animated music videos and sketchbook scribbles transformed into t-shirts. Now, joined by his partner in crime Jessica Delisle, these poker-faced put-ons have been conjured into a blob of pure sonic ectoplasm. Say hi to Energy Slime!  New Dimensional is the duo’s primordial ooze, cramming ten songs into a jam-stacked thirteen minutes and two sides of a 7-inch. Like Robert Pollard in quick-hitter mode, or a circuit-fried Bruce Haack and Esther Nelson, the pair creates way-out musical miniatures. Energy Slime’s enchanting earworms range from the fuzzed-out glam stomp of “Bustin’ Up” to the stately Eno pomp of “Mother Brother Sister Father.” The breezy blue sky-ride of “Only Clouds” crash lands on the space cruise of “Star on the Ground,” after a 34-second huff of “Gas in a Bag.” Delisle grabs the mic for the shimmering Cyndi Lauper sock-hop of “Cool Ship II” while Arner shares his medical credentials with the feather-banged headbang of “Why U Wanna.” Road trippin’ ramble-riffs follow “Trial of the Mind” onto the rattling trail of “So Long Snakes.” And the crown-jeweled centerpiece is a lascivious tribute to one half of Stop Podcasting Yourself titled (natch) “Graham Fucks the Queen.”