Parris Soaked in Indigo Moonlight can you feel the sun
In his releases to date, Parris has enjoyed praise for the way he utilises space in his music. Words like careful, thoughtful, skeletal and understated crop up often. When you consider that Parris spent his formative years in Plastic People at FWD>> parties, regards early James Blake and Airhead records as key influences, and has affiliations to labels such as Hemlock and Idle Hands, it’s no surprise that cavernous expanses and intense sub-bass have found their way into his production.
The same can be said for Parris’ debut album, Soaked in Indigo Moonlight, but here a different kind of subtle complexity is at play. Sure, there are moody polyrhythms, deft percussion and bone-quaking bass, but he also seamlessly imbues bright melodies, dreamlike synth pads and some irresistible pop vocals to boot. Parris loves pop (if you visit his Resident Advisor page, his biography simply says, “pop”), and on lead single and album standout Skater’s World, with Eden Samara, those pop influences truly come to the fore. With almost no additional instrumentation besides vocal and percussion, Parris’ ode to friendship and skating is a masterful attempt at his own take on the genre, sitting somewhere between sugary hyperpop and a straight-up drum track.
Even more playfully, select tracks on the record even have titles that are onomatopoeic. Take Contorted Rubber, for example, with its elastic techno that bends and nearly snaps. Or Frozen Hailstones Underwater, where watery synths drift to the surface like trails of bubbles. This willingness to experiment – something he’s already proved in his well-known DJ sets – shows a different side to the producer that made his name through distinctly UK sounds. Now, he’s carved out a space all of his own.