Rory Johnson
Copy Editor
I started the new year with something fresh, so obviously I chose Sweet Trip’s 19-year-old “velocity : design : comfort.”
Valerie Cooper and Roberto Burgos came together to create a unique blend of electronic, glitch pop and shoegaze made on Burgos’ computer.
The album is unique in Sweet Trip’s discography and shows a turning point in their creativity sonically.
The opening track “Tekka” has the same drum n’ bass feel as the previous album, but with much more distortion and effects added.
Halfway through the song, it sounds like a ‘90s dial-up tone is being played over the music.
The “glitch” pop tendencies are heard when the music sounds futuristic or is reflective of something listeners would hear in video games.
“Fruitcake and Cookies” slows the album down and enchants the listener with muted guitar strings and soothing melodies.
Still, this is being played over static and what sounds like a computer crashing.
Cooper sings about tears being endless and needing to cool her heart down.
To me, the vocals are adding a ton of texture to the computer crashing.
After her vocals stop the song enters a wave of distorted guitars repeating endlessly.
“International” spends the first two minutes hovering around in static and random noise.
Burgos finally starts singing about escaping the worst life and how things could get better.
When Burgos opens his second verse this beautiful distortion enters the mix building up into Cooper’s verse.
The second half of “International” is intense and loud like the first half of the album.
I enjoy how much is being given off sonically here until it fades away.
“To All the Dancers of the World, a Round Form of Fantasy,” has my favorite vocal performance and mix from Sweet Trip.
It’s another song that belongs in a video game, but this time is a serenade.
Cooper sings about a lover she admires greatly with these beautiful effects over her voice.
The song breaks into this brief pop section about how she’s on her own anyway and ends with this melancholic shoegaze riff.
Sweet Trip did an amazing job of including songs to dance, fall in love and cry to in the all-in-one album.
This album is certainly different with its approach to sound, but it has something for everyone if they’re willing to try it out.
