Record Review: Avoxblue

by | Jun 6, 2012 | Hip-Hop & Electronic, Reviews

Avoxblue
A Place Without Time
Boston, MA

(Self-released)

“Electronic New-Gaze”

A Place Without Time is a soundtrack for moving forward while looking wistfully back.  Avoxblue’s sound is a modern-retro-future singularity, synthesizers that wouldn’t sound out of place in ’80s electro band creating rich modern atmospheres that are somehow also pop songs. The sound of older electronic sound fits perfectly with creator Jimmy Rossi Jr.’s lyrics, his instruments mirroring his dreams and worries, trying to find a place to fit in the modern world. The songs are primarily constructed of rhythmic and melodic synth parts that bounce off each other and build into choruses that swell with regret and hope.

“Timewaves” opens the EP with a tonal pad, as if an arctic wind learned to sing, before bringing a methodical drum machine and pin-like synth that slowly build the track outward to a dense climax. Rossi’s voice is moving in its vulnerability, sending out its human messages from within the synthetic textures. A Place Without Time floats into your headspace like dreams within an icebox. It inhabits a space between ’80s techno-industrial and shoegaze, a space that has melody to boot.

Written, Performed & Produced by Jimmy Rossi Jr.

Mastered by Nick Zampiello at New Alliance, Cambridge MA

Layout by Matt Price

avoxblue.bandcamp.com