Tropics - Soft Vision

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4...according to our Business Lady on Thu 14 Oct, 2010.

Tropics is the work of Chris Ward, a young (22) UK resident with a taste for post-punk, new wave and everything else 80's inspired. Here we get three tracks of luscious goodness courtesy of Planet Mu who have obviously taken a shine to the dude. I can dig a lot of this stuff that extends the palette of 80's inspired production sounds and twists the influence into new a tasty shapes. 'Give It Up' immediately brings to mind the like of Neon Indian, Memory Tapes and Washed Out purely based on the production and choice of instrumentation. It's got cool ghostly female vocals, big beats and layers of synth and bass drone all compressed in a crazy way so there's never any let up. 'Melorr' is steadier and takes it's time to evolve naturally which i like but it's 'Soft Vision' that takes the crown due to the ridiculous 80's drum sounds and the overall ghostly nature of the track. It's easy to accuse Mr. Mu of jumping the chillwave bandwagon and easier to mock the label for pretty much missing the boat (summer's over dude etc..) but I reckon Tropics is an artist worth backing especially on the strength of this debut 12". It's certainly worth a listen kids.

The man behind 'Tropics' is Chris Ward. He’s a 22 year old Brit taking influences from 70's jams, post-punk and whatever else he taped in his youth, bringing us the radiant sounds of dreamy, summer nostalgia.

His music has already caught the attention of Pitchfork and XLR8R who have posted up tracks by him, as well as a number of bands including Little Dragon who he has remixed and will be collaborating with on his forthcoming album.

Check out the lush video here (and youtube) http://www.xlr8r.com/news/2010/08/video-tropics-soft-vision

His music is an utterly gorgeous slow motion mix that sounds like sustained euphoria, such as lead track "Give It Up’s" slow motion chugging disco with ghostly female vocals and chiming bell-like melodies.

"Melorr" is even slower; grinding gently under the weight of its own airy compression, building more and more elements into the mix as the track evolves: voices, electric guitar and ghostly wisps of melody.

"Soft Vision" is the one that has got Tropics the attention, with its lush 80’s production inspired sound. It sounds like it’s in 3d, with huge waves of synths that shimmer and ooze through the track as it subtly grooves along to a the kind of drums which wouldn’t sound out of place in 80’s stadium pop.