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Aug 12, 2013Paracosm is a beautiful, beautiful album.
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Aug 9, 2013The songs are intricately built but they also feel distinctly impermanent; little snippets of soft static open and close a number of tracks, like the songs are coming in and out focus.
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Aug 13, 2013Greene isn’t reinventing the wheel here, but he doesn’t need to; all he needs to do is create another solid LP. And Paracosm—as a stellar feel-good summer record that measures Greene’s growth as songwriter and musician--has done exactly that.
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Dec 17, 2013One of its strongest allures was its comfort and maturity.
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Aug 15, 2013Paracosm is essentially a travelogue, albeit wrinkled, scuffed, and faded so as to match the love-worn tastes of its creator.
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Aug 14, 2013In its very best moments, to me, Paracosm works as a stunning reminder as to why, perhaps, some of us find chillwave to be so uniquely addictive and therefore worth segregating from other forms of music: it’s a celebration of life, and a bitter reminder that our best days may have long passed us by.
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MojoAug 13, 2013[A] hazy smoked-out amalgam of shoegaze, analogue synths and surf-pop harmonies. [Sep 2013, p.95]
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Aug 12, 2013It sounds fully colored in and unless you're a big fan of cold and lifeless, it's a huge step forward for Washed Out.
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Aug 12, 2013What makes Paracosm unique from Greene’s previous endeavors is that Paracosm is like the voice of John in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, asking for balance in a world inundated by the synthetic. It gives us a little breathing room from all the heavy drops and synth-pop without totally giving the technological age the slip.
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Aug 12, 2013The naysayers may have a point, this might not seem like an aural paradigm shift to some, but Paracosm is still a vital progression for Washed Out.
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Aug 12, 2013Greene has spoken of striving to create a paracosm himself with his lyrics, although his stoned drawl often renders them indecipherable. Still, they add to the sunlit, woozy, mysterious world that Washed Out has built.
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Aug 8, 2013You couldn't call the album a brave leap into the unknown, but nor does it feel hackneyed. Instead, it subtly shifts the boundaries of what Greene does in a way that makes you intrigued to hear what he does next.
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Alternative PressAug 7, 2013By letting the listener into his universe this time, Washed Out have created an album that inhabits you as you inhabit it. [Sep 2013, p.94]
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Aug 7, 2013Washed Out himself stumbled first time round, even. Here he creates a fuller piece, totally unconcerned with its context and its audience. Hence why it excels.
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Aug 13, 2013At a handful of points throughout the record, a group of voices arise as the music recedes, all laughing, talking excitedly, and beckoning friends to come closer. These voices, combined with the occasional field recording of birdcalls and nature sounds, give Paracosm an air of carefree, breezy effervescence.
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Aug 9, 2013At the very least, it’s an admirable first step into something far more profound.
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Aug 12, 2013The range of Paracosm helps Greene present himself as more of a singer/songwriter than a producer, though the former part of that dynamic still lags.
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Sep 5, 2013Paracosm deserves to be praised and enjoyed now, not in 20 years' time. He's not quite cracked it, but it's a big step in the right direction.
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Aug 20, 2013Even though there aren’t any forcible tracks or extreme depth to this album, it captures an experience that should be played out entirely.
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MagnetAug 16, 2013For nine tracks in just 40 minutes, these are lighter than air and spry enough for your feet. [No. 101, p.60]
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Aug 14, 2013Greene's meticulous creations are still slow-rolling and thickly layered, but this time he and returning Animal Collective producer Ben Allen slather on less futuristic sounds.
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Aug 12, 2013Though firmly in the dream pop niche, the record is not limited to electronic soundscapes or synthesizer-based melodies, striking a balancing act between those standbys and more organic components including myriad antique keyboards and strings.
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Aug 12, 2013Paracosm sounds warmer, more enveloping; precisely because it’s so much more spacious, it’s cozier.
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Aug 9, 2013Paracosm floats by like a wonderful dream, from which only the most jaded music fan would wish to awaken.
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Aug 7, 2013Overall, Paracosm is an impressive return from an artist who is still learning his trade.
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Dec 5, 2013The results are a Technicolor Washed Out. Greene titles these tracks for the easy vibes they invoke.
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Aug 12, 2013With almost every track extending beyond five minutes, it can feel overstretched.
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Q MagazineAug 20, 2013Some detached ambient pieces remain, but at its best it makes for luxuriant listening. [Sep 2013, p.106]
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Aug 12, 2013Each track bleeds into the next with seamless precision, borrowing each other's fantastical effects from both mid-century analog plug-ins and modern digital tricks.
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Aug 12, 2013Elsewhere, he mistakes AOR-ready sentimentality and banal lyrics for perfect summer-album material, which seems like a misdirected pursuit--Within and Without already was a near-perfect summer album.
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Aug 8, 2013The 80s funk references are more submerged under the washes of synthetic drones, and the songs even more pastoral than before. Still, there’s nothing here quite as immediately satisfying as Feel It All Around off his 2010 Life Of Leisure EP.
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Aug 7, 2013Loose vocals meander through the whirling haze, the album more suited to intimate, personal listening rather than gatherings in the sun.
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Aug 12, 2013Paracosm is, at the very least, beautifully rendered wallpaper, and it’s hard to blame Greene for living in this fantasy for as long as he possibly can.
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Aug 13, 2013On Parocosm, Ernest Greene tips his hand too early, too obviously: there’s not a lot to make you believe that he genuinely finds these sounds beautiful without some sort of winking hipness.
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Aug 12, 2013"Chillwave", the genre with which Washed Out, or Ernest Greene, is synonymous, was always a tongue-in-cheek name but this remains non-ironic music about nothing more interesting than vague good vibes.
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Aug 12, 2013Mostly, Paracosm is Chromatics if their nocturnal danger was replaced by nocturnal emissions, or Beach House if they got so stoned they forgot to change chords for minutes at a time.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 32 out of 37
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Mixed: 4 out of 37
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Negative: 1 out of 37
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Aug 28, 2013
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Jun 20, 2020
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Aug 13, 2013