datmillionyoung

The ambient vocals and summer sounds of chillwave are influenced as much by the geography of their creators as anything. Hot, lazy days are conjured by the likes of Toro y Moi, Washed Out, and Neon Indian, who hail from South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas, respectively. The same is true for Florida’s Mike Diaz, AKA Millionyoung. His third full-length’s 10 tracks evoke a summer drive along the southernmost East Coast, with palm trees blowing in the breeze, waves spilling onto the beach, and Tommy Bahama shirts galore.

The title track, which features a tempo akin to Daft Punk’s recent samples, kicks the album off by ditching the good read and sunblock for a night-time beach party, while the slower “Keeps” sinks beneath a floppy hat for an afternoon nap. Such juxtapositions make the record more diverse than Millionyoung’s past efforts, which could feel like one massive song. But even more than the Florida sun, on Variable, Diaz is influenced by good old-fashioned love.

The Beach House-esque “Lovin” (“Every time I see you / I lose all track of time”), beat-heavy “Swish” (“Having you here feels so right”), and the punchy, electric guitar-driven “Grow” (Everyday, I need my loving arms around you”) all swoon over the period of a relationship when things begin to get comfortable. Diaz isn’t writing of love-at-first-site or a love that lasts for eternity, but the ease and comfort that comes with finding someone.


Millionyoung’s always-used combination of electronic sampling, real instruments, and Diaz’ processed vocals make for the perfect toolbox, or beach bag, for such sounds and lyrical content. The nonchalant haze that varnishes the record calls forth a summer afternoon with a new beau, so interlock your fingers with your lover’s and head for a coast. - Consequence of sound

The challenge for chillwave artists in 2011 will be to expand their sound without abandoning the nostalgic spirit that made them so appealing in the first place. I expect the genre to shed its lesser adherents, those Washed Out wannabes who pound the same two or three chords on their Casio keyboards and expect continued recognition on The Hype Machine. Some will say that chillwave is over, but in truth it will simply be maturing beyond the clichéd adjectives so frequently ascribed to its music (“hypnagogic,” “nostalgic,” “hazy,” “half-remembered”).

If ever there were a good candidate to update chillwave, it would be Florida’s Mike Diaz. The biggest problem with his Be So True EP from early last year was its brevity; at just 17 minutes long, the five-track release tantalized listeners with solid songwriting and ethereal vocals indebted to (but not derivative of) Elizabeth Frazer’s unintelligible yet seductive singing for the Cocteau Twins.

MillionYoung’s debut LP, ill-advisedly titled Replicants, sounds like his previous work on steroids. The songs are longer, the instruments more varied, the beats less uniform. Most effectively, Diaz brandishes a heavily-reverbed electric guitar, coating tracks like “Cosmonaut” and “Synanthropic” in a psychedelic ooze that recalls the trippy aura of Sun Araw and Ducktails. “001” also features an electric guitar, but this time Diaz uses it in a garage-rock context; meanwhile, lead single “Carlissian,” potential single “Perfect Eyes,” and album closer “Synanthropic” use acoustic guitars to refreshingly organic effect.

Unfortunately, these moments of inspired guitar work don’t quite make up for the redundant melodies and formless songs that compose a disappointing chunk of the album. The Atari-disco “On On,” funky “Easy Now,” midtempo “Gravity Feels,” and waltz-like “Forerunner” all start promisingly but quickly turn boring; Diaz never develops these melodies into fully-fledged pop songs, choosing instead to repeat the same musical phrases and layer synth on top of monotonous synth. He stretches pleasant synth-draped moments into staticky approximations of ambient noise. Too many tracks here are beefed-up variations of the songs from Be So True and 2009’s Sundreamm, replacing their short-and-sweet charm with tedium.

The best songs here—“Carlissian,” the title track, “Perfect Eyes,” “001”—marry pop sensibilities with chillwave’s Vaseline virtuosity, but they are few and far between. “Tokyo 3” runs under a minute but ought to have been expanded, as it provides another intriguing possibility with backwards rhythm (think Missy Elliott’s “Work It”) and a haunting melody. The bulk of this album, however, consists of tracks that sound more like instrumental exercises than proper songs. “Gravity Feels” best summarizes this problem; its introductory rhythm is bouncy and nimble, with a laid-back bassline groove to carry it along. After two minutes, however, nothing’s really changed except for the addition of an occasional synth line that seems more like an afterthought than an integral element. It’s not until the song’s final minute (following an irritatingly loud breakdown) that something interesting happens, as Diaz sings over a guitar line that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Peter Bjorn and John’s Writer’s Block. But before this portion has time to develop, Diaz cuts it short, casting a clumsy, stilted shadow over the entire track.

Earlier, I said that Be So True was too short. As it turns out though, its brevity may have been a key to its success. It seems that when MillionYoung has more room to breathe, he suffocates on his own ideas. There’s a great EP’s worth of material hiding within Replicants, and I wish it had stayed that way. - Beats per minute

Reverb. That's really what it takes to sum up the sound of Millionyoung in a word — well, reverb, some synth goodness, jangly guitars, and a whole mess of diverse elements may be a more accurate description, but that’s hardly a single word, so it doesn’t much count. That's all on display with Replicants, the first full-length Millionyoung release, which follows a couple EPs; expectations, as a result, have been strong.

Replicants is without too many moments of weakness, but the writing’s not particularly stellar (the pun was unintended, but it remains for posterity’s sake.) It tends to draw on a bit, and the reverb can make for a sonically frustrating, headache-inducing experience. There’s not a lot of room here to maneuver, unfortunately. There aren’t any elements that grate at the ears, but Millionyoung’s debut full-length could do with some perspective. That said, taking Replicants in chunks can be very rewarding, as the writing is generally of some quality, and there’s a certain intuitiveness to the sound.

The Replicants sound is sort of eponymous. It's sort of android-inflected in its own way — and while I'm not entirely certain androids are the best of dancers, they'd probably be inclined to here. The album points toward a sound where the "false" and the "real" become confused and entangled, even if its not entirely there yet. No, Replicants is packed with some real natural pop tendencies, which betray an entirely false approach. There's a bit of an electronic facade to the whole thing, and it masks a bit of that pop nous, but it doesn't hide it all.

Peeking out from the cracks is some guitar with a bit of jangle to it as it tries to avoid getting drowned in a sea of synthesized drum beats, but it makes the album. Millionyoung refrains from too many of the bombastic tendencies of electronic music as a result, and we're left with something quite listenable. - Noripcord

422 people viewed this instagram post from February 23 - datmillionyoung

MillionYoung reached 166K fans with his music spreading throughout 60 countries via Spotify. - datmillionyoung