OSTARA is a collection of chill, ambient lofi beats in the truest sense.
In the world of retro nostalgia art, there's a debate between authentic production and authentic feeling. For us, the question is:
Should a good work of retro nostalgia music prioritize sounding authentically like the source material that inspired it, or should it prioritize feeling how that source material felt?
For me, this album lands firmly in the territory of the former. This album sounds like a cassette some friends made in their garage over a weekend, and I say this with genuine praise.
While contemporary popular lofi is dominated by lush sounds, meticulous mixing, and exaggerated nostalgic warmth, OSTARA sounds unevenly mixed, inconsistent in loudness, dry, and most of all honest. It's the difference between playing a song with that warm and cozy scratched/popping record effect, and actually listening to damaged vinyl records.
From the intricate rhythmic effect produced by the ducked pads in the first two tracks, to the undulating synths in track 3, to the gentle jazz instrumentals in track 4 (my pick for the standout track on the album), there's a number of good musical moments that kept me listening. Each track has a solid identity without compromising the cohesive feel of the album. While the defects described in the previous paragraph initially threw me off, these musical ideas kept me hooked long enough to appreciate those defects as part of the art.
I don't want to be misunderstood. I like that contemporary lofi sound also. But in contrast, this album felt refreshing, like a glass of tap water after drinking nothing but sweet soda all day.