Declan McKenna has been an innovator since his gentle entrance into the music scene in 2015, with his debut EP titled “Brazil.” As he continued to elaborate upon his unique sound and attract the attention of millions of people worldwide, he found himself desiring to approach the concept of creating an album differently. Quoting his biography on Spotify, “McKenna taught and trusted himself to take his time and let the listener soak in the ambience.”
What resulted is an entrancing 12-track project called “What Happened to the Beach?” in which we find McKenna allowing himself to sacrifice the idea of moving quickly from one idea to the other for repetitive hooks and synth work that simultaneously feels like it was produced today and 30 years ago. In the currently hyper-saturated and monotonous state of the indie music industry, this record is a breath of fresh air that pulls from a vast plethora of influences across many genres and eras of instrumentation.
The second track, “Elevator Hum,” is indicative of the sound that Declan McKenna is trying to generate with this album. Many of its sonic themes reappear across the project in varying ways, and the song is fascinating in its own right and is certainly a modern classic. Here we see a lot of filtered instruments combined in convoluted ways to form a tapestry of noisy ambiance to back the entire track. The classic indie-pop instrumentation laid over the top of this background is wonderful in its own right, with an angelic pad panning from left to right as McKenna sings about the desire for joy in the lives of those around him.
Track four, “Sympathy,” sees him go for more of a classic thumpy acoustic vibe with some wonderful electronic textures and melodies lining the edges of the song. The end of track six, “Breath of Light,” is interesting for its usage of a noisy bassline in conjunction with vocoded vocals and classic ambient instrumentation that reminds me of the early work of Brian Eno. The harsh parts of this outro help transition into track seven, “Nothing Works,” which has a heavy bassline leading a rather whimsical melody with lyrics that are surprisingly tragic concerning how the song sounds. However, the entire instrumental scheme changes at the song’s halfway point when it suddenly falls apart into a wall of chaos just to come right back with an intense, buzzy synthesizer leading the mix instead of the bouncing bass just moments before. This is a standout moment on the album, and it is one of the more creative and interesting beat switches listeners may have heard in a while.
The eleventh track, “It’s an Act,” sees McKenna heavily pull from ideas first minted by dream-pop bands such as Men I Trust and Beach House. The jazzy bassline is present throughout the entire five-minute runtime as more and more foggy instrumentation is built on top of it to construct an intricate tornado of sound that perfectly reflects the emotions McKenna was clearly feeling as he made this song. The album ends with a 48-second outro that feels like an ambient-pop demo from the early ’90s titled “4 More Years.” Even though this was only meant to end the album uniquely, some might find themselves listening and relistening to this track because of how beautifully simplistic it is.
This record shows McKenna stepping far outside his comfort zone in an effort to create a piece of art that is more than just a collection of songs. Each of these tracks flows neatly into the next, and although there were certainly some shortcomings on the record, the whole project feels concise and chaotic at the same time. Fans of any modern genre of music should give this album a go, as its diversity makes it accessible to many.
