Baby, maybe I’ll see you down the road
It’s hard to come by a song that has all of the qualities of a home run. It greets you with bundle of warmth. That’s what I quickly discovered about “Shake” by Villa Coola. It’s easy-going simplicity is like ear sugar that sends a warm fuzz up spines. Not to mention, Villa Coola has the perfect voice to match the tone of the song.
Lazy Lofi with a Crystal-Clear Sound
Lofi isn’t a genre known for progressive, cutting-edge production techniques. You enjoy it “as-is”. Lazy, inaudible vocal passages drenched in watered-down distortion are just the nature of the beast. “Shake” has a sound fashioned with frayed laces and dusty strawberry blonde hair. When it comes to songwriting, charm conquers all.
“Shake” plays out like a story that steadily follows the energy of the drums, guitar, backing vocals, and bass guitar. The further we travel into the song, we start hear the rest of the band peak between verses. The song really evolves as you listen, especially at the outro. There’s a waft of grunge rock lurking behind the vocals that really pairs nicely with the theme of the song.
Simple and Clean
The lyrics speak for themselves. Toss them in the trunk, hit the road, and take the ride from start to finish. It’s a mellow summer tune you can listen to year-around. Revisit the classic story of the “forever crush” that just lingers for evenings on end like dead skunk. Our eyes get soldered together after restless nights of sleep, waiting for that phone call that never comes.
I can’t be waiting all alone
For a telephone that I know it ain’t comin’
It ain’t comin’
The production quality is surprisingly clean for a lo-fi song. Lofi, or low-fidelity, is a substandard recording style full of blatant sound imperfections like discolouration and distortion. Typically, lo-fi artists are completely shameless when it comes to recording. Not all lo-fi artists come off this way, and that’s the basket Villa Coola belongs to. There’s no doubt Villa Coola spent some time digging through the trenches of the West Coast. We’re greeted with a contagious sun-faded chorus and washed out guitar leads.
No one’s calling from the east coast
But it’s still early on the west coast
I think you know who I got dressed up for
I know I’m never gonna shake, shake, shake, shake
How I feel for you
Villa Coola fills the closing of the track with layers of vocal tracks falling over one another into puddles of reverb. The entire movement is a cascade of duelling harmonies. It’s a pleasant way to end a song that expresses the daily trials of love’s most common side-effect: unshakable fixation.
