Rebounder
There is something wonderfully ridiculous about a New York band writing a love song to Los Angeles, and Rebounder have clearly decided that the best way to deal with this geographical and emotional contradiction is to make a bloody good pop song out of it. ‘Heavenmaxxing’ is the latest taste of the brothers Dylan and Noah Chenfeld’s forthcoming debut album Downtown People, and it arrives sounding like summer has been poured into a cocktail shaker somewhere between Greenpoint and Sunset Boulevard.
The track has an effortless, sun-drenched quality that immediately makes sense of the band’s fascination with the West Coast. It is breezy without being lightweight, romantic without disappearing completely up its own arse, and carries that slightly detached New York cool that stops the whole thing becoming another syrupy postcard from California. The Chenfeld brothers started with the title and instrumental before working backwards into the melody and lyrics, and that backwards approach seems to have worked beautifully; there is a loose, instinctive quality to the song, as though the tune wandered into the studio wearing sunglasses and nobody had the heart to ask it to leave.
At its heart, ‘Heavenmaxxing’ is a song about longing — for someone, somewhere, perhaps even a version of yourself that exists several thousand miles away. Dylan Chenfeld describes it as being about the peculiar experience of being a musician in New York who loves Los Angeles and, inevitably, ends up falling in love in Los Angeles too. That gives the song a nice emotional tension: it might sound relaxed, but underneath the West Coast shimmer there is a bloke staring out of a window wondering whether he should get on a plane.
Rebounder’s wider musical world is equally interesting. Their debut Downtown People pulls from the history of New York music while throwing Sky Ferreira and Lykke Li into the same blender as Dire Straits, with literary influences including Don DeLillo and Bret Easton Ellis lurking somewhere in the background. The result is an indie sound that is polished and colourful without sanding away the rough edges of city life.
That contrast is what makes ‘Heavenmaxxing’ work. It is glossy enough to soundtrack a late-night drive along the Pacific Coast Highway, but there is enough melancholy underneath to remind you that somebody is probably still waiting for a text message. And that seems to be very much the territory Rebounder are exploring across Downtown People: breakups, new romances, missed connections, city life, ambition, nostalgia and the strange business of trying to build a meaningful existence while everything around you gets faster, stranger and considerably more expensive.
Written, recorded and produced by Dylan and Noah in their Greenpoint studio, the record has the advantage of being unmistakably their own creation, despite a handful of contributions from friends and collaborators. ‘Heavenmaxxing’ feels like a particularly strong example of that self-contained approach: stylish but not sterile, catchy without begging for attention, and packed with enough atmosphere to make you want to hear where the rest of the album goes.
If this is the direction Downtown People is heading, Rebounder may have stumbled onto something rather special: music for people who want the glamour of the city, the fantasy of somewhere else and the nagging suspicion that the grass is probably greener because somebody has put a very good filter on it. ‘Heavenmaxxing’ is laid-back, lovestruck and effortlessly cool — a little slice of California dreaming made by two New Yorkers who apparently know that sometimes the best place to escape from the city is inside a three-minute pop song.
To find out more: Rebounder
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