FAUZIA: flashes in time | Review - Pitchfork

In early 2017, not long after she had begun DJing in earnest, London’s FAUZIA uploaded her inaugural DJ mix to SoundCloud. “first ever mix,” she noted in the track description. She quickly landed a monthly residency on NTS Radio and worked her way up to gigs at clubs like Frankfurt’s Robert Johnson and Berlin’s Griessmuehle; early last year, she joined the renowned Discwoman agency, stepping up alongside artists like Juliana Huxtable, Object Blue, and SHYBOI. But as swift as her rise as a DJ has been, she has taken her time in establishing herself as a producer. Her scant discography so far has felt like a collection of works in progress—stepping stones, perhaps, to a more official debut, ETA unknown.

FAUZIA only began putting out her own music last year: first a couple of compilation tracks, then a collection of original productions she showcased in her Discwoman mix, followed by more loosies and a proper EP. Her music could be fierce, sensitive, and striking. But many tracks also had the unfinished character of a sketch or DJ tool, right down to functional titles like “generic bass track,” “Percussive Track,” and “138 PERCS!” Her new EP flashes in time, which she bills as “a collection of demos/ideas/emotions,” shares the unvarnished presentation of her previous work. But despite the brevity of the release, which breezes through seven tracks in under 13 minutes, it marks an important shift. FAUZIA’s music is getting more confident and idiosyncratic; it’s moving beyond familiar club contexts in search of points unknown.

Until now, FAUZIA’s tracks have hovered mostly in a kind of interzone, drawing variously from UK bass, Detroit techno, electro, breakbeats, and IDM. On flashes in time, she abandons many of those clubby touchstones in favor of ambient vocal overdubs, lo-fi guitar, and long stretches where she lets reverb do most of the work for her. When there are drums, they sound like they’ve been carved out of bursts of white noise. Her voice is what tends to hold the songs together, like wispy connective tissue.

“Stormy Days” opens the EP on a low-key note, contentedly mulling over the kind of lilting melody someone might absent-mindedly sing to themselves in the contented daze of a new infatuation. “No more stormy days/Now I get to play/In the sunshine with you,” she sings, unaccompanied but for her own overdubbed vocal harmonies, which she alters as she repeats the refrain, subtly expanding the song’s dimensions. Then, about halfway through, her singing stops, the reverb tail on her voice whipping into a gust of echo. What follows is almost a minute of ambient sound, like bird calls ricocheting through a canyon.

The rest of the EP’s songs don’t get much heftier than this diaphanous opening. Moody and cinematic, the bookending “recollection” pairs mournful vocals with a scratchy drum machine and creaky streaks of dissonance, conjuring a symphony of rusty screen doors. “swirl,” the record’s most upbeat cut, makes do with little more than an electric guitar, post-punk bass, and tinny snare, her voice bobbing like flotsam over the dubby mix; it’s an inspired cross between the Slits and Two Lone Swordsmen. “rewind” is just 71 seconds of granular synth, as though she’d dipped a kaleidoscope in a glass of bubble tea.

It’s hard to put your finger on what it is, exactly, that makes these songs so rewarding, much less so coherent. FAUZIA’s rhythmic techniques are unusual but not radical; her melodies are mostly loop-based, her words often indistinct. You wouldn’t think that the Matthew Herbert-like IDM of “low!” would make sense in such close proximity with the lo-fi ambient folk of “one day.” Somehow, though, she conjures something distinctive, no matter how diffuse. More than merely a mood, it feels like the glimpse of a unique perspective. It’s unclear whether flashes in time’s “collection of demos/ideas/emotions” is meant as a clearinghouse before she embarks upon a more intentional project. For now, anyway, FAUZIA is finding new ways to express herself within the confines of the humble work in progress.

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FAUZIA: flashes in time | Review - Pitchfork
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