Mister Lies - Cleam

Mister Lies released Cleam on the Hidden Neighbours EP in 2012.  When you read that he's a Chicago producer, you think to yourself 'oh he must be the Second City's answer to James Blake'.  Sometimes you'd rather not know he's a 19 yr. old named Nick Zanca studying dramatic writing and Philosophy at Columbia College.  Further proof that the Singularity is nigh.

Cleam captured the zeitgeist of 2012 in a way that seemed improbable given the density and variety of releases.   It opens with a plaintive melody and the sound of rainfall that continues intermittently throughout. This Rashomon rainfall is somehow redemptive, while the melody suggests a vague melancholy striped with hope.   It's delicate stride and time stretched quality endear it to the now but the vocals, very slow seemingly male pose a question (if you can make it out): Make a move, it's only human (has been what my ear has always heard). "Make A Move" suggests both stasis and opportunity.  In a move that's past-ironic it turns out Zanca found the moral heart of the song from a brief sample of Brandy flipped to his device.  So it is that Brandy's 1994 Atlantic release  I Wanna Be Down which contains those lyrics became a part of the spirit of the ages:

That your the kind of guy that I should make a move on
And if I don't let you know
Then I won't be for real
 

The Brandy sample appears at :43 seconds into I Wanna Be Down and at :44 seconds into Cleam and throughout.