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Live Review: LISTEN: Paces 'Letters'

6 June 2012 | 1:30 pm | Staff Writer

Check out Paces' excellent tracks, released in celebration of his recent airtime on triple j unearthed.

Mikey Perry started Paces as a project to "make quiet music to show his mother". Well, since then, people other than his mother have been getting into his combination of blissful electronica and soulful beats. People like triple j unearthed, who have been giving him a fair amount of radio play.

To celebrate, Paces will be releasing three tracks from his upcoming album Letters for free. They differ vastly in character, but all give off the same sense of classiness.

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'Depths', for example, combines a sample from Jose Gonzalez's 'Hints' with the sound of waves lapping, a looping synth riff, and a brooding bassline that creates a beautiful atmosphere akin to sitting on the balcony of your home by the seaside, listening to the ocean rumble, while thinking of literally nothing. It's quiet music that stands in stark contrast to what Perry gets up to in party duo Surecut Kids.

Turning down the amount of sit-back-in-a-vegetative-state beats, 'Cray Cray' features frantic, thumping drums with synths that alternate between blissful and distorted. The result is a song that varies in energy, but not in a disconcerting way. It builds up and releases, builds up and releases, builds up and releases...then all hell breaks loose and you are left with this incredible rush of energy.

Finally, 'Let It Ride' plays out like the best hip-hop beats, with tension building up in the dark choruses, but dissipating in the hooks, where the beat is more spacious, with synths drawn out and cymbals splashing.

These are some amazing tracks; so good, in fact, that I'm considering playing putt-putt golf to them. I fucking hate putt-putt golf, but that's how great these tracks are.

To check out Paces' tracks from Letters, click through to his Facebook, like his page, drive down to Docklands, Melbourne, and book yourself in for some fucking glow-in-the-dark minigolf. Okay, you only have to do two of these things.

Words by Stephen Pham