![]() Similar magic is made of “We Fly High”, an extremely tiresome and self-involved spoken word piece from the 2010 Real Friends EP. Plus, now there are disses against crypto-bros and the line “So lest the gun from act one go unused, it’s yours”, a phrase so thoroughly laden with intensity and import that it almost feels like a waste to hear it fighting to be heard over the blaze of treated guitars that erupts just seconds ahead of it. The simple lyrical shift from “when you’re dead” to “when I’m dead” gives the song’s lacerating cynicism a softer, sadder center to fall back into, and the diamond-hard beats carefully reveal the song’s fundamentally punk construction while ALSO showing off an exceptionally colorful and roomy mix of soft choral pads against serrated autotune against a headbanging breakbeat. Case in point: for everything “Minneapolis Belongs to You” did to crystallize EG as a force to be reckoned with 11 years ago, “It’s Yours!” surpasses it in nearly every regard- more resilient, more assured, more worldly. “Omamori Piano Fantasy” in particular stands out here as an ambitious expansion on “Omamori”, bringing just enough of the original’s flavor to truly appreciate how far it ranges in tempo, timbre and tone.Īt its best, the album refines already-great ideas into unquestionably-definitive renditions. I really enjoy Motown-sounding drums and can kinda take or leave most piano balladry, and my personal enjoyment of these experiments broadly falls along similar lines, but in all cases it’s exciting to hear more unexpected sides of songs that already exist in other forms, fresh approaches that want for more than to inhabit the existing perspective on a composition. At worst, this newfound variety comes at the expense of a more concentrated dose of that ineffable Elite Gymnastics aesthetic: “How Could You Do It?” swaps the programmed keys and 808s of “So Close to Paradise” for jangly guitar and lively Motown-sounding drums, while “Here, in Heaven” and “Omamori Piano Fantasy” both balance the futuristic ambience of their original versions with excursions into delicate piano balladry, with assistance from collaborator (and former Sputnikmusic contributor(!!!)) Conrad Tao. Material that previously sulked within the safety of its own day-glow ravehaze has been cracked open, confronted head-on, forced to distinguish itself. Okay now FOREGROUND: snow flakes 2022 is a near-masterclass in reinterpretation and showcases one of the most exciting producers currently working in largely dazzling fashion, highlighting everything that made Elite Gymnastics a breath of fresh air in the first place and arguing eloquently for their sound and ethos’s continued relevance. That’s snow flakes 2022, equal parts long-delayed culmination of, and conflicted retrospective on, the moment these songs were birthed by. But a healthy creative mind cannot thrive on grievance alone (and Brooks’ never has), so with Clancy’s blessing, a valiant attempt has been made to imagine the Elite Gymnastics debut that never was, returning to the fan-favorite Ruin 1 EP and a smattering of other old material to polish it up, rework it where necessary, and round it out with new lessons learned in the intervening decade. In much of Brooks’ work as Default Genders since then, the sting of that rejection, that stolen future, has been palpable. ![]() They released seven EPs before collaborator Josh Clancy quit in 2012 all contain unlicensed samples and, apart from the two uploaded to SoundCloud, cannot be found on any major streaming platform. Indeed, it seems Elite Gymnastics showed up to make a slick, cutting-edge pitch for a brave new world of 21st-century electronica just in time to see the door to that world slammed in their faces by streaming corporations and algorithmic ads and paywalls. ![]() In the Tumblr post she made last year announcing the return of Elite Gymnastics, Jaime Brooks lamented the divergence of the indie music world from the “online counterculture” of mashups, megamixes and bootlegs, despite the many indications throughout the file-sharing era that the two would instead collide head-on. Review Summary: opening your eyes and looking both waysįor those who don’t know, BACKGROUND: Elite Gymnastics first exploded into the indie blogosphere right at the dawn of the 2010s- the very tail end of the internet’s wild west days- with a vicious onslaught of dreamy synths, clattering sample-heavy beats, and bitingly confessional lyricism.
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