[stream] Chad Valley // Fast Challenges

Written on April 30, 2011 by Dave in Music

As most of us are aware of Chad Valley here, this doesn’t really need much of an introduction, but for those who aren’t, here goes:

Chad Valley is the solo side project of Hugo Manuel, who’s also the synthy-whiney guy from the brilliant Oxford four-piece Jonquil, who’ll be blessing these pages with a write up soon. Hugo Manuel, under the moniker Chad Valley, creates, quite simply, chilled out synth-pop. His tracks occasionally take on a lo-fi vibe as the depth of his music fluctuates between a complex maze of high-pitched verses and muffled percussion, yet he can also effortlessly drop into beautifully simple pop-hooks, most notably in “Up And Down” (featured on here back in July), which a lot of the members of the so-called “lo-fi” movement often ignore at their own demise.

“Fast Challenges” is his latest release from the upcoming and highly anticipated EP Equatorial Ultravox. Compared to some of Hugo’s earlier releases, such as Ensoniq Funk, it soon becomes obvious on this latest track that his sound has developed and matured rapidly. Although I’m still very much a fan of this earlier material from the self-titled debut EP, it reminded me too much of Washed Out at times which, though far from being an insult, did mean that his music had the tendency to drift into mediocrity. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing of course, however, his new material sounds much more composed and considered. As a result, he’s managed to successfully encompass an obviously diverse and seemingly conflicting range of genres, here’s hoping the rest of the EP can live up to this standard.

The Equatorial Ultravox EP will be released on the 21st of June.

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Chad Valley – Equatorial Ultravox – 05 Fast Challenges by CASCINE