Houses - All Night

When Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago was released a couple of years back, pretty much every review or article on the album was obliged to sketch the background story behind its recording: self-enforced isolation, a harsh winter, a log cabin, hunting for food, chopping wood, etc. And although the endless recycling of these facts may have grown tiresome after a while, it was understandable why everyone felt the need to mention them: put simply, the backstory went hand-in-hand with the mood and tone of the record, quickly becoming as inseparable as, say, the artwork.
 
Similarly, it’d be nigh-on negligent to write about Houses’ debut album, All Night, without referring to the circumstances of its recording. Houses is the project of Dexter Tortoriello and Megan Messina, a couple who decided to leave the hustle and bustle of modern life behind for a while after Tortoriello lost his job. Retreating to a log cabin in Hawaii, they decided to live ecologically, using rainwater to shower and solar power for energy. At the same time, they recorded some music, with Messina often painting while Tortoriello worked on material, inspiring him further.
 
The fruits of their labour are as you might expect: All Night is a lush, layered collection of blissed-out dream-pop and ambient instrumentals. You’d think we’d all be sick of hazy odes to summer by now, but no: this is a highly enjoyable album that absorbs you with its soothing, laid-back manner. A track like ‘Endless Spring’ typifies their approach: built around a trippy guitar loop and a dreamy vocal sample, it could give ‘Feel It All Around’ or ‘Deadbeat Summer’ a run for their money in the chillwave-anthem stakes.
 
Similarly, ‘Soak It Up’ is a hypnotic, lulling tune built on a descending, rhythmic bassline: it’s a bit of a shame we’re pushing November, because this kind of song was designed for hot, lazy summer days. Elsewhere, ‘Medicine’ is a short-but-very-sweet instrumental piece that’s almost meditative, while ‘Sleeping’ recalls the elegant, sensual glide of The Blue Nile. If this is what coming up for air sounds like, we should all do it more often.