100 gecs
Overview
100 gecs is the project of Dylan Brady (who has worked with BONES and Charli XCX before) and Laura Les (who already had dropped some music under the name of Osno1).
| Release | Rating |
|---|---|
| 1000 gecs (2019) | 6.5 |
1000 gecs
1000 gecs is the bastard child of Sleigh Bells and Hannah Diamond. 1000 gecs is another perspective of the state of pop. But, above all, 1000 gecs is the epitome of 2000s nostalgia, it being expressed sincerely or ironically.
This is 100 gecs’ debut album, though some of the songs on it (Money Machine, for instance) had already been released as singles. The duo is signed to Brady’s Dog Show Records. This album could be categorized as pop i guess, but the kind of pop that Charli XCX, Dorian Electra, and the PC Music label are doing, which for some reason is always changing names (deconstruced pop? bubblegum pop?). In this review i’m gonna call it hyper pop. Want to know how it sounds? Listen to this album.
The begginng track is dissorienting. 745 sticky features high pitched vocals (typical of the genre), but it can be dissectioned into two sections: the first is watered-down a trap-pop song, as what can be found in virtually any Drake album, but the second part is a melange of an à la Ariel Pink skits, Skrillex-like dubstep beats, and a series of seemingly unrelated samples. A taste of what’s to come? Perhaps, but overall dissorienting.
Money Machine is downright a banger. It is an example of why this hyper pop thing has been gaining track for quite a few time already: seemingly absurd lyrics (what does having a small truck even mean?) boosted over a bass-heavy beat with heavy distortion. It lasts less than a minute, but i wouldn’t be wrong in saying this is one of the better singles of the year.
800db cloud is not very interesting. Neither is I Need Help Immediately, a mediocre imitation (or parody?) of Oneohtrix Point Never, nor is gecgecgec, which follows a similar fashion.
Stupid Horse is a ska song. A ska song? Yes, a ska song. In 2019. I mean, the wrap is bubblegum-made, and the lyrics are equestrian, and trap’s sign rattling hi-hats make an appearance, but all in all this song is a ska song. Though the idea sounds silly, the execution is surprisingly good.
Ringtone is an à la Kero Kero Bonito small, cute song. Hannah Diamond-esque in spirit, but wrapped around a Sophie-esque anthropomorphic blob, it morphs and corrupts itself as it progresses (kind of like in the opening track). It is something i’d find on MySpace in 2008.
The two songs i enjoyed the most on this album are xXXi_wud_nvrstøp_ÜXXx and hand crushed by a mallet. They are the brightest moments of Laura Les and Dylan Brady, respectively. The former is a nightcore-esque song, but the vocal manipulation featured on it is quite interesting. Towards the middle of the song Les’ vocals implode: the vocal spectrum polarizes itself, and the broken effect this generates is very interesting. They don’t only implode, they also take the lead of the song, but the chop and screw technique with which the song ends is a bit abrupt. The latter is very heavy on synths and effects. The hype the beginning creates and the momentum the bridge constructs is transformed into an ironic iteration of Blood on the Dancefloor, with a really catchy beat and Brady’s surprisingly fresh flow. However, the ending is very abrupt, and the momentum the song had been redirecting seamlessly crashes into wall.
The ending track, get 2 Ü, is a weird mix of 2000s drum n bass and 2008 electro-pop, all put into a blender alongside contemporary glitch pop. Not the most interesting track in the album, and a sour way to end it.
I think Brady and Les deconstructed hyper pop: they grabbed certain elements from it (chipmunk vocals, heavy vocal distortion, and distorted, thick synths) and combined it with MySpace era of the Internet. More than an ode or a love letter to the past, it is a (not organic whatsoever) integration of new elements into the hyper-pop cannon. There are a couple filler tracks, which feel unnecessary and don’t do much for the album. I can see the idea 100 gecs may have had while crafting it. However, the deconstruction part of their music backfired, and the integration of the different influences, embodied in the samples they used, felt uneasy and irregular (take I Need Help Immediately as a perfect example of this, or gecgecgec). Banging in some ways, and with an uneven pace and quite some filler in-between well-crafted tunes, 1000 gecs is an add-on to what PC Music is already doing (or at least did, as it has had very few releases in recent years), plugging in far-fetched “MySpace music” into the mix.