Four years after his first , ’s devotion to digital has not flagged. The artist whose commitment to analog recording and vintage gear got him in the has embraced the possibilities of Ableton Live with the zeal of a convert. And whatever Vanderslice’s Damascus moment was—in interviews, he’s being stuck at home early in the pandemic and watching a friend DJ under the influence of Silk Road molly—the shift has been complete.
Beginning with 2020’s , Vanderslice’s finely wrought songwriting went from sharing space with his plugin and programming experiments to ceding it to them. Last year’s was essentially deconstructed glitch, with a lone indie-rock track sticking out like a hacked webstream. Internet ephemera entered his vocab; he started giving his songs titles like “ ” and “riingtones (78 BPM)” and “sitemap/raytheon technologies.
” One such title, from 2022’s (credited to ORANGEPURPLEBEACH), summarized his stylistic about-face wonderfully: “admin reveal / take cover”. On , Vanderslice finds a balance between his headlong embrace of electronic production and his longstanding art-rock inclinations. On previous efforts, he appeared giddy with newfound possibilities, like a teen working a cracked copy of FL Studio.
With Google Earth—a collaboration with producer and longtime friend James Riotto ( , , )—experimentation is still key to his process, but now it’s lab quality. originated as a series of glorified jam sessions in which Riotto and Va.