Babes has ran one of the city's busier Bandcamp accounts this year. Since January, the one-man band has released a single (“Teeth” b/w “Roam”), an EP (Jets) and a short album (Sides), all of which collect concise, abstract pop songs built around over-tuned instruments, bedroom beats and the unnamed singer's jittery voice.
The artist's latest release is Siobhan's, a collaborative EP with his friends in the new local project Sixteen Notes that pushes Babes into lo-fi dance-music territory. The title track slows an Ace of Base beat to a dazed, druggy crawl, while the standout “New Clothes” is even slower, heavier and more distorted. Both balance gloom with joy. Like so much post-Animal Collective chillwave, there's no trace of cynicism here, just an unbridled sense of wonder that carries through even the grimiest sounds.
Siobhan's won't be the last Babes release this year. In an email, Babes' songwriter wrote that he's preparing another full length for this fall that's “closer to the Sides end of the spectrum, with some calmed-out pop.” He signs his emails with Z, and though the whole unnamed-songwriter-project thing might seem like an exhausted gimmick at this point, he explains that anonymity has been one of the driving forces of his recent prolificacy.
“I've been playing in bands since I can remember—gotta be close to 10 years now, but I only moved to Milwaukee a few years ago, from down south,” he writes. “Babes has become the moniker I've been using, and it's great. I've had a completely fresh slate to just do whatever I want... and I'm not associating my name with anything, so it's even more freeing. Sometimes playing and recording can become a total drag, when you feel like people know you, know what to expect, care/don't care, etc. So I'm just taking it easy and letting stuff come out when I feel like it.”
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