ICYMI: Washed Out’s Latest “Mister Mellow” Album Is Visually Stunning

ICYMI: Washed Out’s Latest “Mister Mellow” Album Is Visually Stunning

ICYMI: Washed Out’s Latest “Mister Mellow” Album Is Visually Stunning

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A lot can change in eight years.

Take Washed Out’s Ernest Greene, for example.

In June of 2009, the college graduate and unbeknown pioneer of chillwave had just moved back in with his parents.

Unemployed, the 26-year-old with a degree in library sciences frequented late nights in his bedroom recording. Distorting tracks on synthesizers and programming beats soon became the only pleasant constant. Moving back in with your parents, while economical, is no personal victory.

Playing back the beats onto a pair of headphones under this roof, Greene eventually uploaded tracks to MySpace without the intention of anybody thinking twice of them.

But shortly after sharing his work on the site’s music interface and changing his name to ‘Washed Out’ Greene was discovered by a blog/label based in London, known as No Pain In Pop. Texas-based Gorilla vs. Bear soon followed who then was joined by Pitchfork. And the rest my friends is history.

Well, actually no, it wasn’t quite that easy.

Greene played it ‘cool’, agreed to very few interviews, and avoided getting tied down by a label.

Of course, this only lastest for so long before he was interviewed by Rolling Stone and the NYTimes.

Washed Out’s first official EPs were released in 2009 where he sampled 1970’s pop and disco, lamenting a decade he was born too late to revel in. Live instruments and immense psychedelia ran through the veins of Washed Out then just as they do today. They gave life unto the entirety of the project and in April of 2011, it was announced he had been signed to Sub Pop records.

Greene’s debut under Sub Pop, Within and Without, peaked at # 26 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart that year.

His second album, Paracosm, released Aug. 2013 featured his popular single “It All Feels Right,” as well as “Don’t Give Up.”

Four years after the release of Paracosm, Greene’s third studio album Mister Mellow has arrived. The latest album is blissfully introspective with an accompanying visually-stimulating addition.

While the visuals themselves fail to tell a cohesive story, in thirty minutes they most definitely create a feeling.

“Life goes by each and every day,”

Mr. Greene sings in “Burn Out Blues.”

“I need some time so I can find the way to slow down, relax and clear my head.”

Mister Mellow is the music that plays before clearing one’s head. It’s an escape from the trials and tribulations we’re dealt in life, an introspective journey. It’s hiding away in your room letting your thoughts run wild. After all, Greene is a bedroom artist.

WATCH WASHED OUT’S MISTER MELLOW SHOW NOW:

 

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Grace Fleisher Former Managing Editor