Ayno Goze - Deep Bathtub Blues

Hey everyone, I'm very excited this week to be reviewing Ayno Goze's Deep Bathtub Blues.  Ayno Goze is an electronic producer from Stockholm, Sweden.  He has been producing music in a personal capacity for several years now, and his full length debut, Deep Bathtub Blues, is inspired by his time DJing and teaching english in South East Asia, and his love for taking long bathtub sessions after a busy day.  Structurally, his music draws on elements of dub and future garage to create very deeply textured and smooth atmospheres.  He often also combines found sounds with guest vocals, and deep, reverb soaked synthesizers to create oddly bright, but still heavy and spacy music.

This release stays pretty firmly in a slow dub-reggae tempo, rarely rearing its head with faster songs.  However, on songs like "Castle of Sand" and "Educaged"the percussion is really punchy and aggressive, which keeps the songs moving forward nicely.  These couple of songs really remind me old Gorillaz tracks like "Ghost Train".  For a song like "Killing the Ghost" though, it builds up nicely early on and then it doesn't really go anywhere.  As with most of these beats, it starts out on a really firm foot with some aquatic synth work and a nice reggae chord progression, but then it doesn't develop enough to stay involving all the way through.

Like trying to eat a three piece fish and chips dinner.  It can't be done.

I also find myself very mixed on some of these vocals.  I love the passion and intensity in Ayno's voice when he really belts it out on "Reload" before the interlude, but I also find him somewhat ineffectual on "SMOKE Night FIRE Day."  I also really love Emma's contributions to "Bleep" and "Killing the Ghost."  In "Bleep," her smooth voice really keeps the mood bright and hopeful while the backing instrumentation is so deep, and saturated with reverb.  The effect is akin to shining a light into the bottom of a lake.  Also, the lyrics on the close of that song are seriously catchy.  Just closing my eyes and imagining her singing "away, away, away, ow, ow, ow..." is nearly enough to send me to a contented slumber.

The synth work compliments all of these vocal textures nicely wherever they appear.  I find that none of it is especially colourful, but despite its deep aquatic vibe it has a strange sort of luminosity that keeps the album from being too dark or oppressive.  I like how dusty and sullen they sound on "Educaged," and I also like how serene and beautiful they sound on "Bleep."  Through a lot of the album as well, the synth lines kind of float away as if the sound was contained in air bubbles slipping away from you to the surface of the water.

I remember hearing that drowning was a serene experience

In closing, I thought Deep Bathtub Blues was a good debut album.  Ayno Goze has a very prominent command of the textures in his music.  The synths, the background noise, and the vocals are all blended very well, making for some solid atmospheric music (my personal favourites were the tracks with Emma).  Nothing really sounds out of place, or hastily put together on any of these songs.  However, the one major problem that keeps me from thoroughly enjoying it is the pacing.  If the beats had a tighter control of energy, maybe by introducing new elements and taking them away with a greater sense of purpose, then this could be a really great album.

You can listen to Deep Bathtub Blues on Spotify:
http://open.spotify.com/album/2AM2UiRAHuhvLbUNotxdGV
If you're in Canada like me, you will have to listen to the sampler on SoundCloud:
https://soundcloud.com/ayno-goze
Alternatively, you can purchase it now on Itunes.
https://itunes.apple.com/se/album/deep-bathtub-blues/id672720099

Thanks a lot for reading everyone!