Braids is one of those bands that I just stumbled upon. I was looking for a show to go to last Saturday, and this band was opening for Baths. The show ended up selling out, leaving me without a ticket, so I just got around to listening to their album. It’s funny to me how I always seem to find great music by chance. I had never heard of this band, knew nothing about them, and had never read a review before I listened to Native Speaker. Honestly, this is how I prefer to go about listening to new music. If I don’t have any preconceived notions, I’m open to a lot more. It’s much more likely that I’ll be judging the music based only on how I feel about it, as opposed to the Critical Reception section on the album’s Wikipedia page.
Anyway. The album.
So this album kind of put me in a trance. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great when an album can do that to me, but it does make it a little hard to describe musically. My god Carles would describe this as bleepy-bloop core, and that’s about as close as I can get. Braids create a dreamy sound, with a liberal use of echo on vocals, and a copious amount of synthesizers. Because I just zoned out during the album, I can’t pinpoint a song that sticks out as especially brilliant among the rest, which says something about the album as a whole: it’s all good. With only seven songs—granted, only two are under four minutes in length—Braids create a calm, relaxing sound, that I definitely wish I had gotten to see live. Oh well, if they keep making music like this, I’m sure they’ll be back.
Swole Ear 
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