Fisty Kendal - Return2Genesis

 Released: October 3

The kitschy, colorful, and playful artwork of Fisty Kendal’s third album on Third Kind Records is a surprisingly good indicator of what you’re going to get here. It’s playful and fun, with a hefty dose of tasteful nostalgia thrown into it - a nostalgia which is helped greatly by both the retro stylings of the drums and synth as well as the cleverly chosen and integrated voice sample plucked from some unusual sources. The best part about the vocal samples is the contextualization they create, sometimes running abruptly counter to the mood and levity of the music surrounding them. The richest example here is on “You Better Wake Up Girlfriend” which features a prominently used voice complaining about “you think you’re better than me” and other chatter (I swear I know where this is from but I can’t seem to place it for the life of me) alongside a indie shuffle kind of beat and some lush lo-fi synths. 

While the motif described above shows up quite often on the album, we also get treated to some surprisingly soft and almost ambient pieces on here. This includes the heavily spaced out “Infinity Times Infinity Space,” which features some truly spaced out elements that sound almost like a set of wind chimes or something but put into an unusually large void, creating unearthly reverberations. The follow up to this track keeps that spacey vibe going a bit, but “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” is more reminiscent of a slow rolling wave that keeps trying to wash over you. 

The album doesn’t allow itself to get trapped in maintaining on particular motif and instead seeks to keep the same lo-fi vibes going in a few different contexts. But whether it’s spaced out ambient, indie-rock adjacent, or even a surprisingly video game-y jungle track, the chill vibes roll along nicely with just that sweet little tinge of nostalgia.