Coyote Clean Up Magma Mondays
Magma Mondays, the latest effort from Detroit’s dozy house experimentalist Coyote Clean Up (a.k.a. Ice […]
Magma Mondays, the latest effort from Detroit’s dozy house experimentalist Coyote Clean Up (a.k.a. Ice Cold Chrissy), is glazed in bleary reverb and gauzy synths. On “Sowet Sunset,” breathy singing is stretched over blunted kicks, and a prickly water-droplet melody is buried under synths that whirr and sigh. “Mega Miss Out (Dub)” glides along lazily on wispy vocals that melt into the stoney haze of opaque, blurry extended pads. The punchy beat on “Free Coaster Crash” is nestled into a fog of similarly enveloping, breezy sounds.
Through the use of such a murky aesthetic, Coyote Clean Up manages to shape raw mood into winding bedroom jams. Even equipped with a four-on-the-floor beat and an uptempo momentum, as on “Grrrlfriend Plz (Acid),” the songs on Magma Mondays remain smoky and sensual, as if he’s shrouded their energy in reverb and smoothed it into warm, comforting vibes. Seven of these songs strung together become a swamp of dimly lit atmospherics that makes for an immersive listening experience. Magma Mondays exudes ambience; it bleeds out of the indistinct fog of shoegaze-y vocals on “Night Aid Nightly,” the watery chords on “Grrrlfriend Plz (Acid),” and the swirling melody on “Free Coaster Crash.”
But perhaps Coyote Clean Up is laying it on a little too thick. The songs are nice, easy to listen to, mesmerizing, and pretty, but the dense ambience and flowing aesthetic tends to limit them to a specific mood. One might not be inclined to put on Magma Mondays unless they’re feeling hazy and lazy, but it’s a great fit for those moments. On songs like “Rompy Exxxtreme,” the producer nails a sense of chilled-out bliss and experiments with more upbeat, driving rhythms. It’s a hint of what Coyote Clean Up might be capable of if he ventured further outside the bounds of his fuzz-filled aesthetic.