loljkvid
This album is pretty neat please buy it. The beats are glitch hoppy and the vocals are distorted; everything you need for an enjoyable album.
Favorite track: Bad Remember.
Is it in season?
What is this discoloration?
How many of what kind?
Is this its natural state?
Makebelief’s (nee Schuyler Petersen) debut album Confusion Fruit is born of this ambiguity.
A reaping of four years wrought Confusion Fruit, which finds Petersen opening an aperture into a wonderworld of lush textures and vocals lacking a native agency; the sound of citrus turned inside out, congealing into alternative states of existence. Words are stretched, skewed, processed, reprocessed; it is a contorted language with an esoteric vocabulary, but transmitted through the universality of the soul. Sonics are truly a canopy of kaleidoscopic drupes, berries, and pomes, folding and unfolding onto themselves, producing new forms and shapes in their indeterminacy. Saccharine sweet but bewitching and arresting, the result is something as transmorphing as it is transformative.
Is this healthier than the other?
Why does the seedless still have seeds?
From where?
Is it organic?
The esculant opener ‘Keep You’ is the red pill (cherry-flavored) entry into this proxy realm of vivid color and not unnatural form. Human in its sincerity, alien in its radiant iridescence, the track has Makebelief transporting the listener in the palm of his cupped hand to an unfamiliarly delightful environ, softly encouraging engagement with its terrain. We walk out of his possession with an upbeat gait, observing the flora and its fruits, ready to taste the coming crop. The trickle of piano and the fluttering of Auto-Tune are foundational to the existentialism of ‘Take Forever,’ which is equal parts delectable and reflective. ‘Squanderer,’ a probe into human behavior, flickers in an array of chimes, pitched up phrasing, and pulsing bass, with Peterson asking ‘When are you growing out / Of who you’ve been?’ Here, emotions run high, and given the urgency of the content, the stakes feel higher. In fact, every song is preoccupied with the mission (and the attendant exigencies) that its assigned itself, producing poignant prayers to the conscienceless machinations of human life.
Was it sourced ethically?
At what cost?
Are these the best I can get?
Is it enough?
At the core of Confusion Fruit is a sweetness, a tenderness, an invitation to confront reality with citrus-rimmed glasses. How do we reconcile the cruelty, the abstract, the altogether confounding things in life that so innocuously beguile us? The album serves as a repose to this inquiry, with Makebelief stressing that if our response is with great compassion and ardency, a good harvest will yield. After all, life is like the fruit you bear – it’s what you make of it.
** coming to streaming services v soon **
credits
released January 17, 2020
Written & produced by Makebelief
Vocals recorded by Damien Verrett & Lillian Frances
Mixed by Cullen Fitzpatrick
Mastered by Garrett Bevins
Cover art by Schuyler Petersen
Layout by Styles Munson
Thanks to Mom, Dad, my family, Toby, Shahera, Laura, Sean, Sherrie, Clare, Styles, Brett, Red Museum, Kurt, Nick, Nikki, Submerge, Outer Grid, Trader Joe’s, and Sacramento
Special thanks to Eva, Damien, Lillian, and Cullen for helping me through the final stages. Could not have done it without you. <3
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