Rhymies

***Seablite shoegaze maven Lauren Matsui has traded her two suitcases of guitar pedals for an assortment of Korgs, Rolands and Yamahas on I Dream Watching, the debut EP from her solo project, Rhymies.

The songs are built on arpeggiated melodies and sequences rooted in the nostalgia of an 80s dance party. The gauzy textures serve as a perfect base for Matsui’s breathy, wistful vocals. Often glimpsed through the mire of swirling guitars on Seablite records, here they take center stage, to great effect.

The title track (and lead single/video) brings to mind another artistically successful convert from guitar-to-synth-pop, Patience (Roxanne Clifford of Veronica Falls), while “Crashing Lead” somehow fuses the bounce of early Madonna with the ethereal, surreal vocals of Cocteau Twins. It’s the closer (and shortest track at 2:40), “Hesperian (Again)” which points to what we can hope for in the future. It builds one layer at a time to an ecstatic crescendo, before abruptly leaving us with only the memory of the refrain - “When’s it happening?”. For Rhymies, if there’s any justice, the answer is NOW.

FFO: Chromatics, Patience, Broadcast, Italians Do It Better