Youth In Revolt

Two years ago, a pair of high schoolers known as Geocash played a show in my basement, and subsequently blew my mind. I’ve written about them at length, mainly for earlier incarnations of this website, and when they played their final show last month their legacy was, at least for me, cemented. Rather than a Rimbaudian final act, this appears to be only the beginning for young Andy Petr, the wunderkind who is still churning out quality track after quality track since going solo.

The idea of someone being seasoned at the tender age of 17, maybe 18 seems entirely unreasonable, but it all makes sense once you hear what he’s doing. Here’s a link that’s worth a million words: http://www.sendspace.com/file/2dbqli Click it and download 18 of the most recent tracks that Petr has been working on (literally, all of these songs have been written since MARCH 15. Think about that for a minute,) including remixes of tracks by artists as diverse as Gucci Mane, Lady Gaga, and Yeasayer. Get yourself a decent pair of headphones and put aside the hour or so that it takes to listen, and get ready to subject yourself to a wide array of emotions. When I think about myself at age 18, and compare it to what Andy is doing right now, I experience something that I want to describe as ‘positive jealousy’. Like, I wish I had been this far ahead of the game, but I’m just glad that someone is doing something this mind-bending.

An attempt to describe the sound: basically the sampling of a disparate group of element–single syllables from vocal samples, the ‘THX’ Deep Note crescendo, liquid basslines, handclaps, and turning them all into this genius sonic stew that can’t help but make the listener smile. I could go into more detail about what it sounds like, but what’s the point, really? You can download it right now, and hear for yourself, and if you’re like me make up your own gushing adjectives.

Consciously or unconsciously, Petr has made music that defies setting, easily functioning just as well in the club as it does at home. It doesn’t seem like someone so young should be able to produce at such a high level, but dude is peaking, or maybe not even, but he’s on the up, and the future is bright. You can follow him on Twitter, so you’ll be in the know when new songs come out. He’s going places, that much is certain; what those places are and where he ends up remain to be seen, but I, for one, am excited to see what happens next.