Music Box | Overlooked Albums: Sweet Trip

Mike Newmark Columnist

Sweet Trip
Velocity:Design:Comfort
[Darla; 2003]

You could call the early-2000s the era of indie electronic music, offering a deluge of indie pop albums punctuated by a kind of digital poignancy. Suddenly, electronics weren’t just the province of DJs and bedroom producers, but a way to imbue rock songs with certain moods that a guitar couldn’t accomplish on its own. This era saw the emergence of hot new indie electronic artists (The Postal Service) and career-high albums by scene veterans (Mouse on Mars), as well as those unfortunate records that didn’t push hard enough or get lucky enough to end up on anyone’s radar screen.

One of those records is Sweet Trip’s Velocity:Design:Comfort, which is ironic, because its charisma and sheer ambition surpass most concept albums and everything that electronic great Aphex Twin ever released. But it’s more than an imprint of elbow grease in the studio; it’s a potent, sensual fusion of shoegaze, pointillist drum ‘n’ bass, four-on-the-floor dance music and sun-soaked electronic textures. Quite possibly, V:D:C is the most enjoyable indie electronic album ever to see the light of the day, while also being the smartest.

Synesthetes may see colors in music, but I nearly always think of this record in terms of tastes, all variations on (yep) sweetness. Drill ‘n’ bass cuts “Tekka” and “Pro:Lov:Ad” are tangy, while “Dsco” and “Fruitcake and Cookies” have a heavier bubblegum flavor, less complex but still delicious. Despite the busy production and the song-by-song disparities (late in the game, a taut percussion showcase gives way to a jangly shoegaze tune, then leads into a beautiful, cracked lullaby), the whole album goes down as easily as a glass of pink lemonade. It helps that Sweet Trip’s in-house vocalist, Valerie Reyes, is no slouch; her voice is ideal for the surrounding environment, alluring but not outright exotic, and she elevates the already spectacular “Sept” and “Dedicated” to elysian heights.

All this, and Velocity:Design:Comfort is about as unpretentious as albums of this ilk get. It asks so little of the listener that you’d swear it was pouring molten candy straight into your ears and through to your brain. Both the band’s name and the title of this record are truth in advertising that you rarely see in music: It’s sweet, trippy, fast, intelligently designed, and—ultimately—comforting. If you ever discover this incredible place, you’ll probably wonder why you never knew it existed, then fasten your seatbelt and let it whisk you to the stars.