#8 - a.s.o. - "Go On"
In 2023, you can find a perfect pastiche of basically every genre. There’s Snow Strippers doing witchy vocal electronica that oscillates between “poor cover of 2011 trance-pop” and blackout-wasted hardstyle. The Dare’s doing his best debauched electroclash cosplay for the horny and clout-hungry post-pandemic city kids. Nia Archives is the poster woman of the jungle revival, and there’s a throng of DJs making some 2020s update of UK garage. Shoegaze was already having a renaissance last year and now it’s accelerating even more. While countless copycats are content to pump out rote replays of dusty old styles, there are as many artists retooling the sounds in captivating ways, or making music with such skill it’s irresistible.
Trip-hop heads had it great this year, especially with a.s.o.’s “Go On,” a reverie of languorous drums and subtly baleful synth-ripples that could’ve been produced by The Focus Group. Alia Seror-O’Neill’s slow-motion musings have been the perfect soundtrack to some of my late-night strolls, either walking in a daze back from the club or ambling meaninglessly across the city. The way her reverb-laden words dissolve into the foghorns of echoing synth remind me of the Manhattan horizon at night: the slow dimming of brightness as every apartment goes to sleep.
I remember my friends and I driving back from Montauk earlier this year, listening to “Go On” in aggressively hazy conditions that obscured the trees and turned the ocean into purple nothingness. Thing is, I’m absolutely sure we didn’t actually listen to the song during the ride. But the song is so potently atmospheric I’m haunted by this phantom memory.
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