Big Smile, Black Mire

Every track on urika's bedroom debut looks like it's still in the process of being rendered. Electronic static hums and purrs like fireflies twinkling in the background. Drums cycle in warped grooves, revealing damaged textures between their slowing beats. “I imagine what Nirvana would sound like if Kurt Cobain had a MacBook Pro,” the artist said of his music in a recent interview. The hum of a laptop lurks beneath its soft, dull songs, but urika's bedroom doesn't dwell too much on digital details. His music is light and intimate, reusing the tonal fabric of communication breakdown until it's as cozy as a quilt on a cold night.

While not much is known about the Los Angeles-based songwriter (real name Tchad Cousins), urika's bedroom has emerged among a group of similarly dreamy young songwriters. He has toured with Chanel Beads, Nourished by Time and Youth Lagoon, in between producing and writing songs for fellow California up-and-comers Untitled (halo) and Ded Hyatt. Like those artists, urika's bedroom takes a stripped-down, post-club approach to indie, folding in fuzzy bits of hip-hop and electronic music, and creating the kind of acoustic guitar jams that only spill out after a 5am molly comedown. He Auto-Tune croons his hits like Alex G before drinking his coffee, capturing the same innocence he suffered from the Internet for his hazy Jane Schoenbrun films.

On Big Smile, Black MireCousins ​​is trying to make artificial coldness as bright as the sun. Trip-hop contrasts tenderly strummed acoustic guitars, while electronic mash-ups decorate confessional, brooding vocals. “Video Music” and “Junkie” show him at his best: The former amps up bright guitar harmonies with breakbeats and CDJ effects that peak alongside Cousins' breathy, childlike vocals. The latter dresses up its acre scratches and turntable scratches in coarse distortion, like a more studio-polished Organ Tapes or maybe Yves Tumor if they leaned all the way into the emo notes Safe in the hands of love.

Although Urica's bedroom touches great emotions, whether he actually gets there is another story. Mostly, Big Smile, Black Mire reveals all his tricks within the first few tracks. “Exit's” slow-core, palm-sounding guitars may be produced with just the right amount of groove, but halfway through the album, it becomes harder to ignore how much you rinse and repeat each successive song. “Metalhead” keeps stopping and starting, as if suggesting a new direction, before finally settling on more of the same. By the time you get to the Modest-Mouse-by-way-of-Orchid-Tapes chug of “Century Love,” Cousins' sincerity starts to feel a little too much like posturing.