Premiere: Chants – Halogen (ft. Riley Lake)

Madison, Wisconsin-based producer Chants first came to our attention through a series of pleasant, R&B-tinged pieces of beat work on Seattle-based Hush Hush Records, showing off a distinct skill for vocal manipulation and melody. More recently, his club workouts, including one each from the Heterotopia bonus tracks and remixes, have become some of our favorite tracks to play out and, while markedly different from his earlier material on Hush Hush, don’t seem totally out of place with songs like “Porch Song 1 AM”. On October 30, Chants will release the We Are All Underwater LP on Hush Hush, a full length statement featuring guest vocalists like Mereki and Boom Forest, but also a tape that sees the producer’s more dancefloor-focused inclinations meet the sort of soothing, bedroom-oriented work previously mentioned. It’s often difficult to reconcile music that is both made in a bedroom and made to sound like it’s made in a bedroom for music overtly made for the club, but Chants does an excellent job of, if not melding the two, making them easily beside each other. As the album goes, the Riley Lake-featuring “Halogen” falls into the former category, a delicate, reverb-soaked bit that sets a melancholic tone for the first half of the record. Of course, Chants’ affect can’t be reduced to melancholy as the album hits a hopeful tone by the second half, tracks like “Gossamer” and “Oxygen Loops” proving to be some of the LP’s best. Pre-order We Are All Under Water here.