Check The Boxes: Seasunsalt’s Ect

Seasunsalt is a project hitting on all of Make Believe Melodies’ favorite elements, to a point where a more paranoid version of myself would think some algorithm generated Ect to make me roll out all the words I already use too much. This is fidgety, at-times uneasy dance-pop featuring bright synth notes and off-kilter beats that make for something catchy that has been blurred into an unfamiliar shape (those piano chords breaking out through “Shadow” tease a more conventional rumbler, here gone all Moonside). But what truly makes Ect stand out — on creeping creations like “Next” and beneath the bell chimes of “EX” — is the voice over all of it, warped by electronics into a mutant form (think Half Mile Beach Club, Taquwami, The Knife, etc.), the one potential human element present turned into the most unsettling and intriguing piece of the whole release. Did they know I’d flip over this? Get it here, or listen below.