Loud Sun: “Sweet Pit” Review
Due to the increasingly isolated culture we currently live in under Shelter In Place laws, a lot of artists are looking inward for inspiration. While Sweet Pit, the latest album from local artist Loud Sun (Andrew Jansen) was almost certainly conceptualized pre-COVID, it does happen to neatly fit the introspective mould. One might think, “Sure but doesn’t most bedroom pop fit that mould by nature?” and you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. Jansen’s sound, however, has made a distinct progression inwards from sunny jangle pop to more sober, melancholy, self-reflection both sonically and lyrically, and that sets it apart from his past work.
The mood of Sweet Pit is like that of a soft bittersweet summer drizzle that keeps you indoors for the time being with plenty of time to ruminate on past nostalgias as well as what’s to come. Jansen accompanies nine tracks with a very easygoing guitar style, bass, drums, electronic embellishment, and heavy doses of reverb. Stylistically he draws from acid folk, rock, and other elements that suggest some slight international inspiration. You could add a cuíca to “Sunny/Sad” for instance and you could call it straight up Tropicalia. Having spent a fair amount of time re-listening to Halcyon Digest recently, to me what comes across as the most direct comparison is Bradford Cox’s work in Deerhunter and Atlas Sound, to which Sweet Pit shares a number of similarities.
Sweet Pit will stream on a small pirate radio station (87.9. KAKE) on May 2nd at 8pm (sunset). Following that it will be released officially on Heavy Meadow Records on May 7th digitally and in cassette format (already sold out via Heavy Meadow but you can still pick up one of a small number of available copies via Sweet Pit by Loud Sun
