Album Review: Charles Fauna Looks Yonder In Debut
Listening to Charles Fauna’s Yonder, there is something steamy and very 80’s futurism to how he arranges his music, which explains why it is called Yonder and its cover is pastel hued skies. The 80’s were a time of dreams of excess; why reach the stars, if you could reach the moon? And why reach the moon if you could reach the sun? Catch my drift? In Yonder, Charles Fauna approaches the eternal conundrum of every human being in every generation: “the level up.”
We all tell ourselves or have heard it: “level up!” Prior I described the record’s sound and style as 80’s futurism or rather retro-futurism: bringing an old idea/ sound of what the future would be, which in that era was a prominent theme. When you believe in excess, you dream of the future because THAT is where you will get it. Thus, tracks like, “A Total Dream,” “Kerosene,” and “Mars” feel like Fauna is booking a Delorean to 88, and we are going back to the future. As we zip away, flashes of lights zip by us in the form of synth-waves and Fauna’s voice feels like the night-sky: mysterious, seductive, and unafraid of the dark.
Lyrically, Fauna tussles between being starry-eyed and commanding. One minute he is sweet-talking Love, “Always You,” and the next he is a man-god that cannot be told what to do, “Apollo.” Yet, that is what young love feels like: it is both liberating and enslaving. When you are in a blossoming romance while still figuring out what is tax return or picking out all afternoon classes, everything feel heightened to you. The world is one giant oyster: a slimy aphrodisiac. Fauna captures this with a music style that is both forward and vintage: singing to frustrated dreams that can’t seem to shake a resilient optimism. The result is an album that is easily fun. For Charles Fauna’s Yonder Click Here For More Information.
