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MH-280 Brothertiger - Golden Years  Golden Years, the first album by Ohio’s Brothertiger, is a chilled-out exploration of creator John Jagos’ lush, lo-fi dance world. “I’ve Been Waiting” is what Ariel Pink might’ve sounded like if he’d been fixated on disco and new wave instead of classic rock, while the full-tilt groove of “Out of Line” brings the club to the bedroom on the back of a hook that could easily be from Zapp and Roger. Most of Golden Years is subdued, though, with Brothertiger building upon cassette beats to create ornate-yet-subtle chillwave landscapes on tracks like “Too Convinced to Care” and the encircling, ethereal “Wind at My Back.” Shades of emotion drift across the album, finding articulation in the vocal “ahhs” and “oohs” with which Jagos pads his compositions. These all come together on the album’s title track and centerpiece, with upward moving wall-of-synth production that leads to the following lyrical aspiration: “I’ve been waiting so long to be somewhere.” Golden Years proves that Jagos need not wait any longer. |
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| Reviews Summary |
| Much of Golden Years should be filed under the electro-pop heading, especially the title track which is one of the stand out's (think M83 having a wrestle with MGMT). - Altsounds / This is a beautiful and catchy record that proves one man can do it all and do it well. - Pop Stereo / A dance record, of sorts. It’s electronic lo-fi hipswaysynth. - Berkeley Place |
| John Lagos, the man behind Brothertiger, hasn’t given me an easy job. To make it harder for myself, I’m excluding these words from the following review: ‘Chillwave’, ‘nostalgia’, ‘gaze’, and finally, ‘haze’. Oh, and the phrase ‘soundtrack to your summer’. The name ‘Brothertiger’ is a portmanteau, a combination of two words to make one new one, and in this case, a combination of human and animal elements. It sounds like a man to me though. I wonder what it would sound like if a goat did the singing. That would be interesting. Like that video mash up with Usher and ‘the goat that sounds like a man’. Sorry, I got carried away. Back to the album. Golden Years starts with the sound of children’s voices, clichéd indeed, but setting the tone for the album nonetheless. Then the synths arrive. The synths arrive. Oh boy have the synths arrived. They aren’t going anywhere. The synths are staying put. For the whole length of the record. All of it. Oh and here are the vocals. “Hey vocals, long time no see. When was the last time? Teen Daze? Blackbird Blackbird? Good to see you again though man.” “Synths, meet vocals... vocals, meet synths”. “Good, now you’ve met, let’s continue. Hey there, don’t get too intimate, you’ve only just met! Hey! Don’t be so flirty synths. Stop it. Stop it. I got distracted again. Back to the album.” Golden Years is a collection of upbeat pop songs that float and flitter. The best of these being ‘Lovers’, a song that stands out like a sore thumb amongst the rest with its cut and paste vocals and infectious synth hook that strongly recalls Passion Pit’s debut Manners. I wonder where Passion Pit have got to... they were quite good whilst they were around. Wasn’t the singer Greek? I think he might have been. I wonder what will happen to Greece. They don’t look like they’re in a very comfortable position right now. Certainly not in their ‘Golden Years’... - Sound Influx |
