03/13/12: How to Dress Well - Love Remains (2010)

03/13/12: How to Dress Well - Love Remains (2010)

1. You Hold the Water
2. Ready for the World
3. My Body
4. Suicide Dream
5. You Won't Need Me Where I'm Goin
6. Can't See My Own Face
7. Walking This Dumb
8. Date of Birth
9. Escape Before the Rain
10. Endless Rain
11. Lover's Start
12. Mr. By & By
13. Decisions
14. Suicide Dreams

     How To Dress Well is an artist that makes very strange, experimental and ethereal R&B music. Yeah I don't entirely get it either. His name is Tom Krell and he is completely responsible for this strange record. I don't even remember how I stumbled across him but it has taken me a while to get to it. This music takes from so many different influences and there are a lot of really cool songs but also a few missteps. Sometimes the layered high pitch vocals remind me of post OK Computer Radiohead. Sometimes he sounds like TV On the Radio. Other times I don't know how to fully explain whats going on.
     A majority of the songs are really cool and interesting. The layered falsetto vocals are a big part of his sound. It sounds at times like a small choir of people singing. There is a heavy amount of echo and reverb used in the production. It sounds other worldly or ghostly for most of the album. There is a very ambient  and droning feel to the compositions. The vocals at times are really great and blended with the song beautifully. He'll even surprise you with an occasional traditional R&B melody. At other times they get annoying or boring but that was just on a few tracks. There were certain songs that I'd love the singing and be turned off by the production and at other times vice-versa. He definitely trys a lot of strange experimental methods within his production. As mellow as the record feels, he definitely throws in strange sonic surprises and outside the norm choices. I wish I could say that it was a great record, but there were a few tracks that did nothing for me. Despite that fact, theres a really great record hidden between those songs and i still highly recommend you check this out. Maybe those outliers will grow on me after a couple more listens.  (073)