Album Review: Shy Girls

Timeshare (Hit City U.S.A.)

By MATTHEW SINGER

[SLOW JAMS] Dan Vidmar likes to take things slow. Two years after posting the three songs that, up to this point, made up the entirety of Shy Girls' recorded output, he's added a whopping six more to the oeuvre. (At this rate, the full-length should be dropping in 2018.) That level of patience works well for a producer of throwback R&B make-out jams, and appropriately, the half-dozen tracks on this new EP don't rush to climax. Each rides a spare, softly undulating groove, outfitted with fluttery guitar solos and stabs of glassware-clean keyboards, as Vidmar murmurs sweet nothings so breathy it's easy to miss that he's actually whispering to himself most of the time. ("I'm not an athlete," he confesses on "Still Not Falling," "I sit at home and make beats.") The light-funk swing of earlier Shy Girls tracks is largely absent, and aside from the previously released single "Under Attack," featuring a starry-eyed soprano sax solo from Noah Bernstein, the easy-listening pastiche is dialed back. As a result, Timeshare comes close to capturing the genuine, window-fogging sultriness of the full-band live shows that made Shy Girls WW's reigning Best New Band—even if it's still coming from one guy who spends most nights alone in his room, in front of a computer.

SEE IT: Shy Girls play Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., with Kingdom Crumbs and Portia, on Thursday, Oct. 24. 8:30 pm. $8 advance, $10 day of show. 21+.

WWeek 2015

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