Fay

Din Fay

Exploring wild, new directions in body music, "DIN", the debut LP from FAY is an absolutely stunning introduction with a pinpoint focus on retaining the physical within the realm of machine music. While clearly electronic in nature using synthetic sounds, there is a uniquely raw human element in Her music that reflects the amount sweat, blood, and pain expended throughout the creation of DIN that makes it stand unique apart. The album's fractured, meticulously composed sonic structures make nods to modern R&B, looping vocal mantras, exotic rhythms (zouk, gamelan), bass music's pressurized subs, and musique concrete's time-disorienting arrangements. Balancing sounds both hypnotic and (sometimes deliberately) harsh, the resulting album is one with few reference points, shrouded in mystery - a mystery that only deepens and intrigues upon closer listen, even as the music and process unveils itself. The cover art for DIN demonstrates how the record was edited and stitched together, visually. Each sound was placed, not in a grid or sequence, but it's distance in time from the others is measured by visual space. FAY comments "In this way, I could retain a human element, and a performative element" Rhythm is central throughout DIN. Separated by clang percussion, album opener "How It Feels Good" feels like episodes, chapters, scenes on a theme. With the protagonist illustrated by the looped vocal, the song is driven by a thumping body drum, like a heartbeat echoing throughout the body. The droning stop-start rhythm in "That's The Part" is a catharsis - a void - almost like you become paralyzed when it turns on, or rather, you are within a thickness, physically, there is only that vibration, it becomes the rhythm at which you move and nothing else can come in until the forced entry of the opposing beat, as if someone had switched the channel. The frantic drums riddims of "Shadow I" are anchored by a steady pulse of sub-frequencies and a loopy, rapid-fire electric piano riff,