by John Glab (@glabglabglab_)
In a world plagued by the awfully mundane, where it can feel like every day blurs together in a crushing dirge of just trying to make it to the next day, people are left looking for something different. They want something novel and unconventional. Something pioneering enough to bring us into the future. For many, Full Body 2 provides a remedy to this desire. After upgrading from Version 1 to Version 2, and moving to Philadelphia, the band started producing luscious, gossamer shoegaze tracks that draw on digital soundscapes. Along with a drum and bass track at the end of each, this is what made up their first two demos released in 2020 and 2022. Now with their latest EP, infinity signature, the band continues this sound, further developing this new world.
The EP activates with a few brief console glints as a startup sound that opens the song “enix wake”. Whirring in is a digitized guitar part altered to sound like a spinning electric motor. It flows in smooth pitch changes as if the machine’s revolutions per minute were speeding up and slowing down. It’s a sound that carries throughout the song over top the band’s glistening hum. The sound then builds in pitch, like the motor spinning faster and faster, until it’s glowing in a luminous halo, or rather red-hot wheel rings, before abruptly cutting out.
This isn't a total system failure, but rather a quick reset after the apparatus was overexerted and needed a quick cooldown. Rupturing forward after this pause is the track “wonder limit” containing a gripping synth like guitar lead which gives this enthralling adventurous feeling to the song. Then it simmers down into a tingling drone and faintly whispered vocals. It’s a formula that makes up the tracks on the band’s previous two demos. “wonder limit” then strips itself back at the end to reveal delicate, glistening synth blips to close out the track. The song “blue trio” also follows the same mechanism that Full Body 2 likes to deploy. A dynamic riff full of action plays the chorus before transitioning into a misty verse with indistinctive vocals. A lot of digital artifacts infuse themselves onto this track, like effervescent glitches, warbled vocoded voices, and the oscillating compressed computerized melody that leads out the track.
Unlike its predecessors, infinity signature doesn’t include a drum and bass track which would fit into Full Body 2’s technological style. The tracks on the EP however don’t lack variation. Instead, the band took a different approach. The song “nokia login” throws in a more laid-back song structure, with the piece bordering on a sense of ambience. The song is defined by a calming haziness that drifts back and forth. Little twinkles of sound and light float through the listener in its levitating daze. The only thing grounding it is the rigid drumbeat playing underneath it all, until it breaks down in a rapidly programmed rhythm. Afterwards, the song buzzes and pings like it was lifted up among the satellites.
The instrumental track “self:heal” takes a similar approach, but instead of being soothing, it feels unnerving. A spacious, far-off drumbeat pulsates quickly back and forth, like blood ruminating in a mechanical heart. Trying to ease this anxiety is an angelic hum, unhuman in a cybernetic way. The last track “moonworld” bursts forward like a savior, acting as a final checkpoint in the EP’s journey. Transuding electronic chimes take slow steps down, and the mechanical whir that has played throughout gives an adoration of newly created life.
What Full Body 2 is so elegant at doing in their songs is creating these digital soundscapes that generate their own digital landscapes. Not only is it prevalent in the cover art, with its glassy, amorphous, bending shapes and figures, but also in the compositions themselves. The tones conjure up these futuristic scenes. They are formed by wispy delicate air, tangible enough to scatter the light in the distance. Gleaming lustered reflections topping the crests of small ripples, waving in a perfect laminar flow. Or the immense solid shapes uniform in texture, melting into and folding on top of each other. These maximalist tracks generate a world perfect in appearance, but presented with fringe sparse and alien feelings in a way where any utopia could also be a dystopia.
A lot of this specific aesthetic is very similar to those used by musicians in other genres that Full Body 2 is inspired by. The prime example being electro drum and bass songs created by artists such as Purity Filter, Windowshopping, and boy 2000. These artists and Full Body 2 both use nostalgic, techno like images of the Y2K era. Specifically with Full Body 2, they draw on their love for games like Kingdom Hearts, and the early 3D Sonic and Zelda releases. These objects of inspiration are what creates that futuristic perception of the band’s music that yet feels familiar since it’s grounded in the past.
This technique in drawing on the past to curate a certain vibe for music has been used by vaporwave artists for over the past decade. They too projected this idealistic past vision of the future into their songs and albums. As time moves on, and the consumer bracket of indie music shifts to younger generations, the era of which nostalgia is drawn on also advances. Instead of the ‘80s or ‘90s, Full Body 2 and other artists have taken elements from the early 2000’s. With that period being where computers started to become universally adapted, and the band drawing on things like video games, that’s how the band evokes these virtual worlds within the music.
Though these technological soundscapes have existed with other musicians, what makes it so special with Full Body 2 is the musical medium they’re doing it in. They infuse all these elements with the whirring noisy dreaminess and the echoing rhythms of shoegaze. It’s a genre that can trace its lineage along the family tree of rock. Unlike vaporwave, drum and bass, or house music, rock is not typically a genre that associates itself with the computerized stylings of these more internet and electronic genres. Since it is so unique, it feels like Full Body 2 has sparked something revolutionary. It’s a sound that could have profound influence on many more acts to come. “infinity signature” is their most fleshed out rendition of this new vision of the future.