An interesting thing about the Night Slugs label is that it's managed to maintain "Next Big Thing" status over the past couple of years without ever really defining what it's about. The London imprint, partly known for launching bass hotshots Kingdom and Girl Unit, employs stylistically diverse artists, and there's never been a convenient tag like "purple" or "rave-house" to pin on them. Label founders L-Vis 1990 and Bok Bok even stress this in interviews. "We've always hated any genre associations with our music and I think it's pretty impossible to label it, it's just held together by a vibe," the former said a little ways back. This slipperiness has served Night Slugs well, but at a certain point you want something a little more concrete-- what is that vibe, exactly?
Neon Dreams, the solo debut from L-Vis 1990 (real name James Connolly) does not answer this question. If Night Slugs' loose guiding principle up until now has been a colorful counterweight to dubstep and grime's murk and grit, Neon Dreams spins that idea in a hundred different directions. The record is (sometimes intriguingly, often frustratingly) all over the place. The starting point, though, seems to be pop. From the album title and M83-esque cover art to the use of guest vocalists, it's clear that Connolly is interested in making songs rather than just club tracks. And sometimes he does this really well. On "Tonight", for example, he throws some 1980s radio sheen on stuttery disco-house and winds up with catchy, retro-futurist boogie.
"Play It Cool", arguably the best song here, also fits into this pop mode. Gooey synths, heavy drama, breathy female vocals-- it nails a very specific kind of dark and dreamy electro-pop. (Worth noting that it fits comfortably alongside such 2011 standouts as the aforementioned M83, Neon Indian's Era Extraña, and the Drive soundtrack.) If Connolly had extended this format (or even this vibe) throughout the album, the rest of it may have been as successful, but instead he incorporates so, so many other sounds. There's a different style on almost every track. You've got a quirky, Chromeo-style one, some brooding instrumental ones, one where a dude talks quasi-motivationally over revved up Chicago house, and so forth.
None of these tracks are particularly bad; it's simply a case of too much. Too many songs with varying themes and no overarching vision to tie them together. It feels more like taking in a label compilation where you're hopping from one artist's style to the next, and even if that were the case I'd still probably say the sequencing is off. But it's possible that this is precisely Connolly's point-- to make something boundary-less and genre-agnostic, in line with the anything-goes Night Slugs ideology. Bass music, after all, is an ever-evolving thing, generating new sub-strains as fast as you can count them, and this corrals a bunch in one place. Still, offer a bunch of diversions instead of a clear path, and folks might get lost along the way.
