Reviews
TOKiMONSTA
Jennifer ’TOKiMONSTA’ Lee’s ‘Creature Dreams’ is a warm yet disorientating collection of beats that document her nocturnal working hours. Lee’s claim that “my mind works in strange and mysterious ways” at that time of night, is a sentiment that will resonate with electronic music fans, and those long sprawling after hours are keenly felt on the record. Beats swell and recede from the off; ‘Fallen Arches’ – the album’s opener – oscillates from being in sharp focus to aqueous and distant, conjuring that sense of fleeting lucidity in a sea of tripped out bliss. This is a pattern that endures both within tracks and on ‘Creature Dreams’ as a whole. The compressed digitised urgency of ‘Bright Shadows’, for example, offers an enlivening riposte to the sparse, fuzzy blooms that Lee layers under Gavin Turek’s beautifully weary vocals on ‘Little Pleasures’.
A patient exploration of those hazy night time hours, Lee’s restraint serves ‘Creature Dreams’ well. Her decision to eschew the instant gratification of the ‘boom bap’ beat and even further prune her already delicate creations to allow Turek’s vocals space on ‘Little Pleasures’ and the fantastically paranoid ‘Darkest (Dim)’ illustrates a maturity and command of texture and space. In letting Gavin Turek’s voice take the fore, Lee ensures there’s no chance of the album sliding into dreamy monotony. It’s not all about pared back production though, for this is a comprehensive illustration of Jennifer Lee’s skills. The dense and claustrophobic ‘Day Job’ feels like being enveloped by a blanket and acts as a concluding lullaby as ‘Creature Dreams’ fades to black.
Rife with beautifully constructed hallucinatory soundscapes, ‘Creature Dreams’ is a triumph. No one is going to lose their shit to this album, but that’s beside the point. These are beats born of, and perfect for, the after hours. TOKiMONSTA paints her dreamy electronic images so vividly, that at its best you can’t help but relive those stolen hours. A piece of brilliant sonic escapism, it’s just as hard to leave as a warm bed.
Words: Joseph Clarke-Knowles
‘Creature Dreams’ is out 16th May on Brainfeeder.
