TVAM - Costasol

TVAM returns to the sun lounger to deliver a horizontal view from the pool of self-reflection. Joe Oxley, a.k.a. TVAM, offers “Costasol began life as two atmospheric interludes that I wrote for my last album, High Art Lite. Over time these ideas took on a life of their own and demanded that I take another look at them. I slowly began putting the pieces together and ended up with a track which became much more than the sum of its parts”. The resultant Costasol is a song about longing, loss and regret wrapped-up in heatwave bass and shimmering guitars, all perfectly enhanced by Mona’s dreamlike vocal.

TVAM self-released his much-acclaimed debut Psychic Data in the autumn of 2018, something of a cult-classic, the album joined the dots between Suicide’s deconstructed rock ’n’ roll, Boards of Canada’s irresistible nostalgia and My Bloody Valentine’s infinite noise. High Art Lite, released in October 2022 took a different tilt to its predecessor by emphasising the immediate and the personal. The colours were blown-out and the brightness was cranked up.

It’s in this world where TVAM’s new Costasol EP exists. Full of colour and noise, with a vibrant, distorted palette. Though the title track may find a home at some pool-side retreat, the subsequent tracks return to TVAM’s claustrophobic realm. Ephemerol evokes its own mutant groove, part ‘Midnite Vultures’ Beck, part ‘Pretty Hate Machine’ Nine Inch Nails, with Heart Attack and VHF rounding off this bold, bright, brief encounter.