The debut EP from Brooklyn indie five-piece
Barrie,
Singles is technically a compilation, collecting three singles that were all released in 2018 in advance of the October EP. The singles are accompanied by remixes of two of the songs. It's a worthwhile gathering because of
Barrie's peaceable yet complex sound, one that landed them on the
Winspear label before they'd publicly shared a track. The songs are the creation of the band's namesake,
Barrie Lindsay, a onetime music theory and composition student who formed a 15-piece chamber pop group as part of her college senior thesis. Here, she and her bandmates weave delicate textures from guitars, keyboards and synths, percussion, and airy vocals. Along with hummable melodies, they establish a consistently dreamy, porous take on chillwave from the first track, "Canyons," whose funky bass and shimmering textures borrow from the '80s as well as the late 2000s. It shares a certain handcrafted production sensibility with the more indie rock-leaning
Hoops, whose 2017 LP,
Routines, was mastered by
Mike Bridavsky.
Bridavsky masters the two remixes here, including a version of "Canyons" reworked by New York producer
FaltyDL with U.K. pop singer/producer
Shura. Their take is even more impressionistic than the single but loyal to the echoing warmth and lo-fi character of the original. The remix of EP highlight "Michigan" is handled by
Brother Michael Rudinski (
Karate,
Psymon Spine), who did the original mixes of the other two songs and nearly doubles the playing time of "Michigan." It closes the EP on more club-friendly beats, percussive timbres, and rhythmic vocal samples, seeming to deliberately kill the vibe but provide the hope of productivity. ~ Marcy Donelson
