HIDDEN GEMS Hidden Gems: Neon Vectors, “Bigger Grooves” By Mimi Kenny · October 14, 2019

In our series Hidden Gems, writers share their favorite Bandcamp discoveries.

Bigger Grooves features cover artwork that many contemporary creative workers can relate to: a woman sits cross-legged wearing a pair of wireless headphones and her laptop open to display a digital audio workstation, and off to the side, a simple MIDI keyboard. This appears to be a depiction of the album’s creator, producer Neon Vectors, who looks very much like she’s enchanted by what she’s making. This is an album whose strength is wrought from the energy that comes from an experienced and dedicated tinkerer.

From the seductive opening title track to the elegant but still groovy closer “UuUUuu,” Bigger Grooves keeps listeners ensconced in its colorful paradise, where the 4/4 thump of house drums always sound fresh and the synth melodies invariably resonate with heart and warmth, like on the infatuated “Boppin’.” 

For a release tagged as “future funk,” Bigger Grooves includes fewer apparent samples than you might expect. The loops serve as a natural extension of the songs’ existing momentum, as opposed to a vessel for the giddy aesthetic that’s come to define the subgenre (like the work of, say, Yung Bae or Snail’s House). The muffled background chatter on “Record Store” comes through as if the listener rests in the comforting calm of their bedroom, blissfully cocoon-like, while the neighbors throw a rager for the century. No FOMO here, though: as Neon Vectors’s grooves get deeper, her following’s bound to grow.

NOW PLAYING PAUSED
by
.

Top Stories

Latest see all stories

On Bandcamp Radio see all

Listen to the latest episode of Bandcamp Radio. Listen now →