The Daily Spin, February 3

ODESZA | Summer's Gone

Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023. It’s another Favorite Friday!

Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite song from each album right here.

If you want to suggest an album, good news! You can do so right here!

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Album: Summer’s Gone (2012)

Artist: ODESZA

Link:

   

Full disclosure: ODESZA is my favorite artist of all time. 

Summer’s Gone is an album made by a group finding their defining sound - at a time where their particular flavor of stadium-friendly electronica was first finding footing in the public eye, ODESZA reached out and pulled from Bonobo, Tycho, and even heavier acts like Burial, weaving in artfully placed samples from the aughts and teens. At the time, it was new sound, and I loved it. 

Though it wasn’t until later, with 2015’s In Return - an album we’ll get to another day -  that I truly got into the Washingtonian duo, it would prove with immediacy that this was my kind of music, Summer’s Gone evoking slow-jam sentiment with fast-paced instrumentation. The group balances that trip-wire with effortless ease from the outside, and though not every song manages to hit - the middle of the album is a slow stumble at times - enough of it, particularly towards the end, plays to the point that if you close your eyes, you can see the crowds weaving their way into euphoria. 

I think ODESZA was still gaining their footing with this release, but you can see hints of where the group was piecing together their identity, and moreover, you can see that they knew what worked. Songs build into percussive-heavy breakdowns, expansive in all the right ways until it feels like you’ve got the entirety of the universe nestled in that space in your chest.

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Rating: 8.6/10

Best Tracks: How Did I Get Here; Don’t Stop; Hey Now

Worst Tracks: Rely