Fair Visions, a Brooklyn-based post-punk trio, will release their debut EP, A Way Out, on August 14. The band is led by songwriter Ryan Work who wrote the songs following his move to New York, when his discovery of the city's eternal four-on-the-floor rhythms coincided with a period of soul-searching. Evoking Bowie and New Order with its oscillating moods and lush instrumentation, A Way Out finds its place in the heady dance lineage of New York New Wave.
The EP's dreaming heart lies beyond the city, in the longing and what-ifs of the oncoming decade. In its contemplative centerpiece, "Coming On," Work confesses his fears of burnout and alienation: Am I faster than I was before? No, I cannot jump higher. Work, a graduate of the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, teamed up with producer Abe Seiferth (LCD Soundsystem, Car Seat Headrest, Susanne Sundfor) and mastering engineer by Joe Lambert (Animal Collective, The National, Sharon Van Etten) to add color and depth to his sketches. Mighty flourishes of synthesizer and splashes of reverb color Fair Visions' gothic vision with adrenaline and a beat that is undeniably alive.
The first single, "Lay Out in the Sun", is out now, In the track, the realities of a purportedly booming economy run headlong into the deferred dreams of an indebted generation. Work explores his own seduction by 'things left undone': the forced march of an adulthood offering only stolen glimpses of freedom. (Meanwhile, the onset of global pandemic and "social distancing" has only further twisted the chorus' ironic longing for a carefree spring day: Don't you want to lay out in the sun? / And get away from everyone / You wake, you eat, you work, go home and repeat / Oh don't you want to lay out in the sun?)
A timely single for our strange times, 'Lay Out in the Sun' sees Fair Visions' sonic palette broaden to include falsetto harmonies and acoustic guitar that sit tensely alongside the group's trademark synthesizers and sequenced drum loops. What would it be like to throw it all away, to settle for someone else's dreams? That perfect afternoon strums itself to life, if you dare to reach for it.
The second single, "Feels Right," will be released on July 15. This was one of the first songs written for what would become Fair Visions' debut EP in a period of transition for songwriter Ryan Work that led him from Boston's Berklee College of Music to Brooklyn. The anonymity of New York, by turns liberating and crushing, fired a slew of new songs for Work. He reflects: "To me, the song is just a checking out of a world that's too occupied with itself to even notice you've drifted off." Co-produced with Abe Seiferth (LCD Soundsystem, Car Seat Headrest, Susanne Sundfor), 'Feels Right' slowly builds as the loneliness and uncertainty that haunt the singer's footsteps fall away into oblivion. Its galloping rhythms, billows of synthesizer, and optimistic chorus ("Oh, I can feel it in my bones / This has always been my home") are undercut by Work's complex delivery, which turns every cheerful lyric inside out — answers become questions, sunshine turns to moonlight.
