- LA is a sunny place. And the music of the artists revolving around Low End Theory—of which Jennifer Lee, AKA Tokimonsta, is a charter member—tends to evoke bright midday stoner sessions. But Tokimonsta's new EP—sharper, more limber and more fluent than her previous work by some distance—is made for overcast afternoons. On "Little Pleasures," the handclaps doubling as snares, chintzy organ tootling around the vocal line and Gavin Turek's vulnerable vocal each have just enough smear on them to evoke rain blurring a window's view path, all before Tokimonsta starts treating them to subtle dub techniques.
Lee has acknowledged an early debt to trip-hop producers like DJ Krush as well as laptop-based beat-makers, and that element is right up front on Creature Dreams. The opening "Fallen Arches" commingles a few kinds of percussion (far-away shaking, tumbling kit fill, conga spritz) beneath slivered guitars and contemplative piano chords. The closing "Day Job" goes even further, evoking nothing less than vintage trip-hop with its heavy breakbeat, sparse atmosphere and whining acid-rock guitar. But rather than sounding like mere pastiche, these tracks—as much as the more obviously Dilla-fried "Bright Shadows" or "Moving Forward"—are strong statements of who she is and, intriguingly, where she's going.
Tracklist 01. Fallen Arches
02. Little Pleasures feat. Gavin Turek
03. Bright Shadows
04. Moving Forward
05. Stigmatizing Sex
06. Darkest (Dim) feat. Gavin Turek
07. Day Job