Daily Doses: Kumon Plaza “River Spot” From River Spot Single (2011)

“When I leave, I’ll just disappear. At least until the day I show up, sit in your favorite chair, and pretend I was never gone.”

Having released the beautiful (And free!) LP Cliff in July of 2010. Dylan of Kumon Plaza has since been employing the time honored artistic tradition of doing whatever the hell he feels like under whatever name he feels like, releasing tracks and EP’s as Happy Trendy and Gay Boiz as well as a few other beautiful ambient works that he has since told me will not see the light of day.

While I love all of these projects, it’s great to see him return to the minimalist style that informed his early Kumon Plaza tracks.

“River Spot” lazily coasts about, building on some basic keys with some 606 drums and swirling synth work. It’s a song for drifting along quietly by yourself. Observing without action. 

Lovely.

Download Kumon Plaza’s “River Spot” 

Daily Doses: Happy Trendy “Skinny Ghost” From Old Friends (2011)

I love starting the new year off with new releases, and old friends.

Happy Trendy is the new (Side?) Project  by Kumon Plaza’s Dylan Khotin-Foote,  the 17 year-old wunderkind from Canada. 

Knowing Dylan pretty well, I’d hazard a guess that this project has a bit of Casiotone For The Painfully Alone inspiration. On “Skinny Ghosts”, The dry vocals that concentrate on their inner emotion to deliver, minimal drum programming and, obviously, casio keyboard sounds all conjure up the minimal sounds of Casiotone, without sounding directly derivative.

Which is perfect, since someone needs to carry on torch for minimalist Casio synth now that Mr. Ashworth has decided to retire the moniker.

Download Happy Trendy’s Old Friends For Free From His Bandcamp