The summer season might be over, but Whethan has finally delivered his highly anticipated project Life Of A Wallflower Vol. 1 — an 8-track collection of songs that’ll make you feel nostalgic about those endless summer nights.
Having only been around the electronic music scene since 2015 with a handful of remixes of songs from the likes of Louis The Child and Elohim, Life Of A Wallflower Vol. 1 is the first formally released project that demonstrates the 19-year-old producer’s talent. He built up to his legitimacy with a string of releases featuring talented artists like Charli XCX, Flux Pavilion, and Oliver Tree. With the new project, he showcases his audible craftmanship by blending in both solo and featured work.
Each song on the track feels like a theme song for a life experience – They feel timeless, personal, and memorable. The opening title track “Wallflower” can be considered the song of the project, maybe even the theme song for Whethan’s artistry in the EDM world. Though short but sweet, it passionately builds up to a triumphant energy that can be considered as the blossoming of Whethan’s shy personality.
Half of the tracks on Life Of A Wallflower Vol. 1 have been released as singles before the start of his Wallflower Tour early fall of 2018. Tracks like “Good Nights,” featuring Mascolo, feature colorful instrumentals that conflict with the bittersweet love story that tragically ends with no clarity, while other singles like “Be Like You,” featuring Broods, set the angsty mood with dark instrumentals and heavy bass. More notably, “Superlove” featuring Oh Wonder marked Whethan’s first music video release. Falling far from short, the industrially fruity instrumentals sensually pair with Oh Wonder’s feature, while the videos visuals are comfortably weird and almost make sense with a song as unique as “Superlove.”
The funk-house infused track “Radar” was given the most recent music video release. Featuring electronic music duo HONNE, the feel-good track sounds almost as good as the care-free music video that sets the tone for the song – A happy sunflower taking advantage of a blissful summer day with his friends and a love interest that the sunflower will not stop pursuing.
“I Miss You” is probably the best track to close Life Of A Wallflower Vol. 1 with. The opening track introduces Whethan’s/the Wallflower mentality and leads up all the way to the tech-heavy track that only leaves us longing for a follow-up project. Depicted as the story of a robot “who has emotions and is feeling the absence of another human being,” the track pulls a Porter Robinson-like sonic warp that blurs the line between virtual and physical emotional complexities that any entity would experience.
Whethan’s Life Of A Wallflower Vol. 1 is a strong body of work that shows the young producers skill-sets in regards to both producing unique tracks and successfully collaborating with various artists. It would be ideal for Whethan’s first project to be a collection of work that hasn’t be released, as well as tracks that allude a broader range of emotions. With that said, this is only volume 1. His artistic potential and growth can only grow bigger from here, and both fans and audiophiles can surely look forward to future project releases.
Album Rating: 4/5 ★★★★☆
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