The overdriven beat is what starts this track on its way to you heart. It is not only the superficial decay of it, the lo-fi crackle as the booming kick begins to distort into a speaker-blowing splodge, the grainy swishing of the hi-hats as they cut through the buzzing air, the exploding handclap hidden in the splash of curdled noise, the snare like robust cardboard thudding its accents on the beat—it's not just the beat existing in this way. It's not just the entire track existing this way, actually, the whole of 'Time Spent Away From U' shuffling with the rhythm of funky house, big sunset crashes of synth destroyed by sidechain and the decay of the track, the vocals crooning ancient lovesongs into the mix. It is not the mere fact of DJ Seinfeld's track existing in this lo-fi manner.
It is more what this actually conveys. What does it convey? When people think of vintage crackle, what is that? It's from turntables, from old records warped and scratched, from old never-replaced needles. But the nostalgia, unless you are old enough to remember it, from these is borrowed, nonreal. The nostalgia of the warping and destruction of this track is blissful and intimate, it has a bootleg feel, as if it were captured on a tape recorder in someone's back garden shed, as if it were being shared by friends on a hi-fi, the speakers already damaged from playing music too loud and now this late night discovery blaring on the speaker, all of you crowded around. It is not just the sound of a song being played a thousand times already, but of the soundsystem it's played through being used even more times. The warmth of this situation, the uncapturable time-and-place perfection of it.
This quality, this aching tragic nostalgic quality of the track, our generation's recognisable nostalgia, not borrowed—this quality, coupled with the sudden gutwrenching drop in the stomach that the big pianos of the track conjure, perfectly illustrates its title. Missing somebody, longing, needing; simply told, bold and blocky, brash and blunt. And through the bleary-eyed sadness of it, we come through the other side, the crunch and depression of it ceasing to quake our ears, the final few seconds of the track free of decay and distortion as we enter into our cold realities once more.
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- 🔔 This track is take from Barcelona-based DJ Seinfeld's debut album of the same name, Time Spent Away From U, which is being released on 3rd November courtesy of Lobster Fury (Lobster Theremin / Media Fury). You may pre-order the vinyl version of this, which features more tracks than the digital version, by clicking this hyperlink.
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