White Life

White Life is a pop group whose retro feel and soulful, heart-wrenching delivery offer up far more than standard pop fare. With slyly addictive beats, the tracks distill and articulate a profound and familiar longing (for summer, for love, for the future). These anthems will remind you what you adored about dance tracks the first time you heard them, and in your complete enchantment finally free you of the lurking fear that you won’t hear as good again. Catchy and captivating, every hook on this glistening debut transports listeners to a youthful collective past and to the hidden recesses of that still untapped desire, while remaining fun, danceable, and –at first listen- blissfully carefree.
Founded and produced by Jon Ehrens, who is joined by his sister Emily Ehrens for vocals, White Life is a lyrical romp through pop history, infusing the beat driven dance model with avant sensibilities. During production the impressive sibling duo worked with “many local figureheads in the Baltimore music scene, including Jenn Wasner from Wye Oak, Chris Freeland of Oxes, and Andrew Bernstein of the Dan Deacon Ensemble,” reports Reverbnation.com, also noting that “Ehrens' previous efforts include The Art Department, whose Paperwork/Birdwork album was named one of the Top 10 albums from Baltimore in 2010 by the Baltimore City Paper.”
White Life

—Time Is Wasting

companypants:

#37
White Life: “Time Is Wasting”
[from White Life / Ehse] 

In a lot of the press that I’ve read for Jon Ehrens’ White Life, there’s a term that’s been thrown around carelessly that’s left me a bit on edge: “throwback project”. If anything, this seems like a pretty goddamn lazy way for writers to get around actually having to come up with anything original to say about whatever subject they are tackling. In essence, when they do nothing but compare an artist to the past endeavors of others, the words themselves are nothing but a throwback.

Yes, it’s all true. White Life actually does sound like an act that’s spent it’s years in the trenches with a healthy number of synthesizer-friendly bands from the eighties. But this is where the project separates itself from the pack of nostalgia-laden bands toting their laptops and midi controllers around the streets of Brooklyn. White Life succeeds in straddling the line between putting extreme care into the music and allowing it to harness a bit of  silliness and hilarity. In so many ways, this puts them in the same league with the artists that they are so often compared to.

Ehrens approaches “Time Is Wasting” with all of the energy and intensity you would expect from someone writing from deep within the bowels of his soul, but still manages to craft an experience that feels light-hearted. Upon reading about Ehren’s involvement in close to thirty musical projects in Baltimore, the song reads more as a personal statement of purpose than something far more simple. Just turn it up and dance around. You’ll be happy you did.

[click to see all songs from the Top 40]

  1. whitelifemusic reblogged this from companypants
  2. companypants posted this