E*Vax reviews

E*Vax: "We Believe In Broken Bones"
[pitchfork]
Evan Mast's debut Parking Lot Music (Audio Dregs, 2001)
was good for everything: waking up, working, eating dinner, dancing, chatting, sex, freestyling, falling asleep-- and it stands up under a hard listen. Playing one track at a party meant playing them all, and fielding several intense requests for more information. What struck people most was how each track wandered off into the delicate unity of its own sonic world, even though the album's signature simplicity was instantly recognizable. One track stands alone, though, in pure adaptiveness: "We Believe is Broken Bones" starts in a gentle rut, but careens out into a hope-littered landscape, orbited by flocking triumphs and flitting defeats. The beat drags its broken skeleton, but the melody couldn't be of newer flesh; it brims earnest intensity, it contains multitudes. I think we've seen very little of what Evan Mast is capable of; with labels fighting over his new baroque-bombast duo Cherry-- in which Dashboard Confessional's virtuosic live guitarist Mike Stroud breaks out-- and a new E*Vax album in the works, there should be plenty to go around.
posted by jascha hoffman, 5/11/2003 11:34:16 AM

THE BEDROOM ELECTRONICA TOP 10
[Shoout magazine] NY
1. E*Vax
Parking Lot Music (Audio Dregs, 2001)
In these unusually patriotic times, I'm sure Uncle Sam is happy to see a homegrown hero head the list of foreigners. Starting with pretty straight forward hip-hoppy beats, Portland's E*Vax then overlays keyboard melodies so mellow and warm, they have the familiar quality of an old friend. Every song a Casi omasterpiecce. (So good it made our Best of 2001 too.)

BEST OF 2001
[Shoout magazine] Volume 6, Isue#1
1. The Shins: Oh, Inverted World (Sub Pop)
2. E*VAX: Parking Lot Music (Audio Dregs)
Audio Dregs co-pilot Evan Mast swirls overlapping layers of glowing tones, effervescent echoes, and tumbling bass beats into a warm blanket of buzzing pop-trponica, B, Fleischmann with a touch more Super-Mario. [Shailesh S. Rao]
3...

E*Vax - Parking Lot Music
[spacelab] (03.03.01)
I've never heard anything like the electronic atmosphere that E*Vax creates on this CD (or LP if you have a turntable). Okay, maybe I have, like, when I hear Mouse on Mars, but it's sublimely different. E*Vax (and what a cool name that is, E*Vax) music is kind of experimental and kind of inspirational and kind of videogame-esque and light and wordless and fun. Oh yeah, and the CD sleeve smells good, you know, like that glossy paper smell. It's so extra glossy and the photography is so fresh and nice!

E*Vax-Parking Lot Music
[ PopMatters] (also made his top 10 of 2001)
Parking Lot Music has both an absolute coherence of sound missing from most pop music and a sense for tunefulness and songcraft missing from most electronic or ambient music. The music created by Evan Mast, aka E*Vax, is dreamy mood music but also catchy, melodic pop.
E*Vax's music sounds very electronic, but also comfortably earthbound; Mast takes percussive sounds and synth/piano tones and uses them to create a layer of atmosphere underneath, and entwining melodic strains on top. Each song will set the scene, then introduce one melody line, followed by another and another, all fitting together into a tune you can hum along with. That's the most unique quality of E*Vax's sound; the duality of it. Each track is on the surface an ambient moodpiece, where you enter an immersive sonic world. But besides surrounding you, each track penetrates into your brain, giving you something you can carry with you through your days: a tune. This is especially true of a few tracks ("What We Mean", "Neon & Aluminum", "We Believe in Broken Bones") which will stick in your head easier than most of the more conventional new pop music that gets played on the radio these days.
There are moments throughout where you momentarily believe E*Vax is pushing into sonic experimentation and forgoing the pop side; in the spacey intro to "Contra Costa", for example, or the futuristic R2D2-soundalike segment at the beginning of "Renovate", the album's final track. But these are moments which soon are overwhelmed by a crisp, beautiful piano part, giving your head something to get stuck on. The album overall has an otherworldly feel, but in a bright, completely up way. It's like Pole after he discovered the sunshine and started basking it, singing the Beach Boys and watching people go by.
Here lies the line treaded throughout Parking Lot Music, one between everyday life and dreams. This is music which feels different, unique, new, like you're entering another dimension. Yet by being so accessible and "easy on the ears", it's also very grounded in our world, the world where people are just looking for a melody to carry them through to the next day. If the name E*Vax sounds like some sort of brand name, the product being sold is dream music for everyday life. This is Parking Lot Music, not elevator music — it's music for spaces you use in day-to-day living, but wide-open, expansive spaces, not claustrophobic ones. On Parking Lot Music, E*Vax is watching those spaces that you live in for moments but soon exit, capturing the invisible, effervescent essence that you leave behind, and then serving it back to you as heavenly pop.
-Dave Heaton

E*VAX / Parking Lot Music
[gullboy]
This follows the 7" he released on Static Caravan which was added in the March 27 gullbuy. E*vax is an electronica artist from England who has recently moved to Brooklyn NY. He has a brother who records as E*rock. What makes E*vax music stand out is the songs which add bright flourishes that bring the sound closer to minimal electronics, but have melody like pop within them. "Tide Pool" (#6) has a sound like a typewriter, and a sound like an electronics equivalent of tearing a piece of paper. These are used in a brisk piece that includes noodling keyboard like much electronica, but rises above due to the clean sound. "S. Carter" (#8) has a sound like a prepared piano (a muted hammer struck string with reverb) that is featured in the piece, which is somewhat quiet on the whole. "We Believe In Broken Bones" (#9) has staccato electronics making up it's beat. The final song "Renovate" (#11) is my favorite. It uses digital echo on the item which serves as the beat, and a submarine sonar submerged feel to give it mood. Vocals are treated and flutter through the weave in a way that almost makes me think of a classic reggae dub track, a feeling only enhanced by the Augusta Pablo (or equally Ennio Morricone) styled melodica part. Faves: 6,8,9,11 (TOP)

E*Vax, Parking Lot Music
[Hauntedink ]
Oh, yeah! For some reason, the IDM music of the crunchy-yet-beaty-yet-melodic variety hasn't appealed to me lately. I don't know what it is--the songs themselves or my impatience at hearing the same sorts of sounds all the time on countless disks. But, for some reason, even though E*Vax's Parking Lot Music is part of the same IDM realm as those other disks, I find it compelling and absorbing, rather than boring and tired. Why? Well, perhaps I am over my annoyance at IDM music, and I'm willing and able to listen to new efforts in this genre. Or perhaps I've paid more attention to this disk. Or (and this one is most likely) perhaps it's the songs themselves, which are rich in both clever sounds and in beautiful melodies. I think most IDM artists work from the standpoint of building rhythms that are either complex enough to be "intelligent" (I have no idea how that works, but...) or hard enough to be danceable. E*Vax might start tracks with rhythms in mind, but these rhythms serve the melodies. Most of the best IDM from the last few years has realized that rhythms get old, but well-crafted melodies and songs don't. Actually, the melodies remind me of one of my favorite IDM works, Bola's Soup. Like Bola, E*Vax's emphasis is the overall listening experience of a track, rather than the hyper-complexity of individual moments within tracks. In other words, although there are plenty of clever rhythms and crunchy, clicky sounds, they serve the larger purpose of crafted, listenable music. Songs like "To Scale a Fish" have tons of ISAN-like clicks and other IDM staples, but these sounds aren't put in the song for their own sake but to add a counterpoint to the sweeping yet delicate synth melodies. I'm impressed by the amount of time I spend listening to this disk. I've had it a week and I can't get enough of it. What more can I say?

E*VAX "Parking Lot Music"
[ XLR8R issue #51] US
With an album title that surpasses even Eno's Music for Airports in the banality department, Evan Mast's debut for the equally unassuming but ever enjoyable Audio Dregs is supremely listenable. The early promise demonstrated by Mast on both Morr Music and Static Caravan labels has now been realized in an album that enjoys the contrast of simplicity against a hard-to-define solemnity. As such, while "We Believe in Broken Bones" toddles between pop-like melodies, it's preceding track "S.Carter" seems to be built from nothing-like skyscraper girders remaining upright through the sheer balance of their own infrastructure. Kinglsey Marshall

E*VAX: Parking Lot Music
[ GIANT ROBOT #22]
This is extremely pretty and cute electronic music-almost like an electronic lullaby for young robots. The sound is childlike, innocent, and mellowed-down drum and bass. It's kind of like background music, which is not an insult; it's just that E*vax's sounds are perfect for parking lots (despite the lack of Jeep beats), and even more so for empty ones. But then where would you play the CD if there were no car stereos around? -en

E*VAX "Parking Lot Music" (Audio Dregs) CD/LP
[OTHER MUSIC]
Straight off of the Morr Music compilation comes E*Vax with his debut, and boy is it a stunner! Evan Mast takes his bedroom electronics to new levels with downtempo beats that pitter and crunch, underwater synth sounds, electronic whistles and whirrs, and a sense of playfulness that gives Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada a run for their money. There's not a dud in all eleven melodic tracks on the record -- it's a little like the best soundtrack to all of your favorite videogames wrapped up in one. After three fabulous 7-inch singles and various tracks for compilations, Evan has lived up to his potential and created a masterpiece of down- tempo electronics. His brother Eric, also known as E*Rock, runs the label that released this (as well as the last two Dim Dim records!), which has a particularly fun Web site at www.audiodregs.com. The "B.Fleischmann of 2001"? Most definitely! Keep an eye out for a mini LP on Morr and an LP on Tom later this year. [JS]

E*VAX: Galcial Sports 7"
[FREQUENCY #3]
On his debut 7", under the moniker of E*Vax, Evan Mast shows how much fun he has with his electronic instruments. On "Playing the Raquets" he lets his off kilter hip-hop drum machine beats lead the way for slow and enchanting sythesizer melodies and weird sound-effect accompaniments. On the playful "Galcier" he turns the tables, shaping the song with the main melody. What ends up with is two welcoming and animated electronic tracks that flow with rhythmical motions similar to those created by groundbreaking German acts such as Schlammpeitziger and Harmonia. (Jeremy D. Rotsztain)


	*EVax: "We Believe In Broken Bones"** [pitchfork] Evan Mast's debut Parking Lot Music (Audio Dregs, 2001) was good for everything: waking up, working, eating dinner, dancing, chatting, sex, freestyling, falling asleep-- and it stands up under a hard listen. Playing one track at a party meant playing them all, and fielding several intense requests for more information. What struck people most was how each track wandered off into the delicate unity of its own sonic world, even though the album's signature simplicity was instantly recognizable. One track stands alone, though, in pure adaptiveness: "We Believe is Broken Bones" starts in a gentle rut, but careens out into a hope-littered landscape, orbited by flocking triumphs and flitting defeats. The beat drags its broken skeleton, but the melody couldn't be of newer flesh; it brims earnest intensity, it contains multitudes. I think we've seen very little of what Evan Mast is capable of; with labels fighting over his new baroque-bombast duo Cherry-- in which Dashboard Confessional's virtuosic live guitarist Mike Stroud breaks out-- and a new EVax album in the works, there should be plenty to go around. posted by jascha hoffman, 5/11/2003 11:34:16 AM THE BEDROOM ELECTRONICA TOP 10 [Shoout magazine] NY 1. EVax** Parking Lot Music (Audio Dregs, 2001) In these unusually patriotic times, I'm sure Uncle Sam is happy to see a homegrown hero head the list of foreigners. Starting with pretty straight forward hip-hoppy beats, Portland's EVax then overlays keyboard melodies so mellow and warm, they have the familiar quality of an old friend. Every song a Casi omasterpiecce. (So good it made our Best of 2001 too.) BEST OF 2001* [Shoout magazine] Volume 6, Isue#1 1. The Shins: Oh, Inverted World (Sub Pop) *2. EVAX: Parking Lot Music (Audio Dregs) Audio Dregs co-pilot Evan Mast swirls overlapping layers of glowing tones, effervescent echoes, and tumbling bass beats into a warm blanket of buzzing pop-trponica, B, Fleischmann with a touch more Super-Mario. [Shailesh S. Rao] 3... EVax - Parking Lot Music* [spacelab] (03.03.01) I've never heard anything like the electronic atmosphere that EVax creates on this CD (or LP if you have a turntable). Okay, maybe I have, like, when I hear Mouse on Mars, but it's sublimely different. EVax (and what a cool name that is, EVax) music is kind of experimental and kind of inspirational and kind of videogame-esque and light and wordless and fun. Oh yeah, and the CD sleeve smells good, you know, like that glossy paper smell. It's so extra glossy and the photography is so fresh and nice! EVax-Parking Lot Music** [ PopMatters] (also made his top 10 of 2001) Parking Lot Music has both an absolute coherence of sound missing from most pop music and a sense for tunefulness and songcraft missing from most electronic or ambient music. The music created by Evan Mast, aka EVax, is dreamy mood music but also catchy, melodic pop. EVax's music sounds very electronic, but also comfortably earthbound; Mast takes percussive sounds and synth/piano tones and uses them to create a layer of atmosphere underneath, and entwining melodic strains on top. Each song will set the scene, then introduce one melody line, followed by another and another, all fitting together into a tune you can hum along with. That's the most unique quality of EVax's sound; the duality of it. Each track is on the surface an ambient moodpiece, where you enter an immersive sonic world. But besides surrounding you, each track penetrates into your brain, giving you something you can carry with you through your days: a tune. This is especially true of a few tracks ("What We Mean", "Neon & Aluminum", "We Believe in Broken Bones") which will stick in your head easier than most of the more conventional new pop music that gets played on the radio these days. There are moments throughout where you momentarily believe EVax is pushing into sonic experimentation and forgoing the pop side; in the spacey intro to "Contra Costa", for example, or the futuristic R2D2-soundalike segment at the beginning of "Renovate", the album's final track. But these are moments which soon are overwhelmed by a crisp, beautiful piano part, giving your head something to get stuck on. The album overall has an otherworldly feel, but in a bright, completely up way. It's like Pole after he discovered the sunshine and started basking it, singing the Beach Boys and watching people go by. Here lies the line treaded throughout Parking Lot Music, one between everyday life and dreams. This is music which feels different, unique, new, like you're entering another dimension. Yet by being so accessible and "easy on the ears", it's also very grounded in our world, the world where people are just looking for a melody to carry them through to the next day. If the name EVax sounds like some sort of brand name, the product being sold is dream music for everyday life. This is Parking Lot Music, not elevator music — it's music for spaces you use in day-to-day living, but wide-open, expansive spaces, not claustrophobic ones. On Parking Lot Music, EVax is watching those spaces that you live in for moments but soon exit, capturing the invisible, effervescent essence that you leave behind, and then serving it back to you as heavenly pop. -Dave Heaton *EVAX / Parking Lot Music** [gullboy] This follows the 7" he released on Static Caravan which was added in the March 27 gullbuy. Evax is an electronica artist from England who has recently moved to Brooklyn NY. He has a brother who records as Erock. What makes Evax music stand out is the songs which add bright flourishes that bring the sound closer to minimal electronics, but have melody like pop within them. "Tide Pool" (#6) has a sound like a typewriter, and a sound like an electronics equivalent of tearing a piece of paper. These are used in a brisk piece that includes noodling keyboard like much electronica, but rises above due to the clean sound. "S. Carter" (#8) has a sound like a prepared piano (a muted hammer struck string with reverb) that is featured in the piece, which is somewhat quiet on the whole. "We Believe In Broken Bones" (#9) has staccato electronics making up it's beat. The final song "Renovate" (#11) is my favorite. It uses digital echo on the item which serves as the beat, and a submarine sonar submerged feel to give it mood. Vocals are treated and flutter through the weave in a way that almost makes me think of a classic reggae dub track, a feeling only enhanced by the Augusta Pablo (or equally Ennio Morricone) styled melodica part. Faves: 6,8,9,11 (TOP) EVax, Parking Lot Music** [Hauntedink ] Oh, yeah! For some reason, the IDM music of the crunchy-yet-beaty-yet-melodic variety hasn't appealed to me lately. I don't know what it is--the songs themselves or my impatience at hearing the same sorts of sounds all the time on countless disks. But, for some reason, even though EVax's Parking Lot Music is part of the same IDM realm as those other disks, I find it compelling and absorbing, rather than boring and tired. Why? Well, perhaps I am over my annoyance at IDM music, and I'm willing and able to listen to new efforts in this genre. Or perhaps I've paid more attention to this disk. Or (and this one is most likely) perhaps it's the songs themselves, which are rich in both clever sounds and in beautiful melodies. I think most IDM artists work from the standpoint of building rhythms that are either complex enough to be "intelligent" (I have no idea how that works, but...) or hard enough to be danceable. EVax might start tracks with rhythms in mind, but these rhythms serve the melodies. Most of the best IDM from the last few years has realized that rhythms get old, but well-crafted melodies and songs don't. Actually, the melodies remind me of one of my favorite IDM works, Bola's Soup. Like Bola, EVax's emphasis is the overall listening experience of a track, rather than the hyper-complexity of individual moments within tracks. In other words, although there are plenty of clever rhythms and crunchy, clicky sounds, they serve the larger purpose of crafted, listenable music. Songs like "To Scale a Fish" have tons of ISAN-like clicks and other IDM staples, but these sounds aren't put in the song for their own sake but to add a counterpoint to the sweeping yet delicate synth melodies. I'm impressed by the amount of time I spend listening to this disk. I've had it a week and I can't get enough of it. What more can I say? EVAX "Parking Lot Music" [ XLR8R issue #51] US With an album title that surpasses even Eno's Music for Airports in the banality department, Evan Mast's debut for the equally unassuming but ever enjoyable Audio Dregs is supremely listenable. The early promise demonstrated by Mast on both Morr Music and Static Caravan labels has now been realized in an album that enjoys the contrast of simplicity against a hard-to-define solemnity. As such, while "We Believe in Broken Bones" toddles between pop-like melodies, it's preceding track "S.Carter" seems to be built from nothing-like skyscraper girders remaining upright through the sheer balance of their own infrastructure. Kinglsey Marshall EVAX: Parking Lot Music [ GIANT ROBOT* #22] This is extremely pretty and cute electronic music-almost like an electronic lullaby for young robots. The sound is childlike, innocent, and mellowed-down drum and bass. It's kind of like background music, which is not an insult; it's just that Evax's sounds are perfect for parking lots (despite the lack of Jeep beats), and even more so for empty ones. But then where would you play the CD if there were no car stereos around? -en EVAX "Parking Lot Music" (Audio Dregs) CD/LP** [OTHER MUSIC] Straight off of the Morr Music compilation comes EVax with his debut, and boy is it a stunner! Evan Mast takes his bedroom electronics to new levels with downtempo beats that pitter and crunch, underwater synth sounds, electronic whistles and whirrs, and a sense of playfulness that gives Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada a run for their money. There's not a dud in all eleven melodic tracks on the record -- it's a little like the best soundtrack to all of your favorite videogames wrapped up in one. After three fabulous 7-inch singles and various tracks for compilations, Evan has lived up to his potential and created a masterpiece of down- tempo electronics. His brother Eric, also known as ERock, runs the label that released this (as well as the last two Dim Dim records!), which has a particularly fun Web site at www.audiodregs.com. The "B.Fleischmann of 2001"? Most definitely! Keep an eye out for a mini LP on Morr and an LP on Tom later this year. [JS] *EVAX: Galcial Sports 7" [FREQUENCY #3*] On his debut 7", under the moniker of EVax, Evan Mast shows how much fun he has with his electronic instruments. On "Playing the Raquets" he lets his off kilter hip-hop drum machine beats lead the way for slow and enchanting sythesizer melodies and weird sound-effect accompaniments. On the playful "Galcier" he turns the tables, shaping the song with the main melody. What ends up with is two welcoming and animated electronic tracks that flow with rhythmical motions similar to those created by groundbreaking German acts such as Schlammpeitziger and Harmonia. (Jeremy D. Rotsztain)


www.audiodregs.com/evax (official E*Vax site)