Rubbernecking in Vertigo by Elon Katz

On one side of experimental pop music, you can find hyper-produced electronica, pitched up vocals, and frantic, clubby beats to keep the party going. This record from LA-based musician Elon Katz showcases the other side of post-pop, after the party is over and you wake up the next morning alone on the bathroom floor.

Rubbernecking in Vertigo is an apt title for this enigmatic release. This album seems to capture moments of imbalance, frozen in space. Spacious, delicate synth soundscapes are structured around strange time signatures and layered, exaggerated spoken vocals. Distortion and silence, noise and nothingness, all are blended together to create a waking fever dream. Maybe it's from the challenges of creating art under the weight of late stage capitalism, maybe it's leftover agoraphobia still lingering post-pandemic, but Katz captures a perfect picture of quarter life crisis, sexual anxiety, loneliness, and emptiness with this release. Bringing a weightless melancholy to avant-pop, this subtle record is worthy of rubbernecking observation.

- Kalen