Please excuse Ernest Greene's absence. he is busy living. The Facebook post announcing Notes from a quiet life—the fifth Washed Out LP, and first in four years—closed with “welcome to Endymion.” It's a reference to the 20-acre Macon-area horse farm he bought in 2021 and turned into a combination plot and artist estate. The property is central to the album's promotion: An illustration of a ranch adorns Sub Pop's press release, which is mocked to look like mid-century letterhead. Last month, Greene released a short film (also titled Notes from a quiet life) about his daily life at Endymion: changing diapers at witching hour, exploring the forest, tending to his carefully arranged globes. Washed Out comes across as the cold wave personified: a Southern-fried bedroom musician who gains an emotional and sonic retreat into the past in the face of an austerity-ravaged present. Endymion feels like the future Greene's team was sold.
How strange that none of this made it onto the record. Despite the beat depicted in the film, this is not Washed Out's For Emma, Forever Ago, or even a folktronica turn. This time, he actively avoids musical influences. Visual artists, mainly sculptors, were Greene's inspiration: Barbara Hepworth, Donald Judd, Henry Moore. These are the left-field references of a noise musician or ECM jazz composer, and an acknowledgment that Greene, too, is refining his own well-recognized forms. Life may be quiet, but the notes seem lined: The easiest way to describe this record is 2020 Purple noon with the fog burned off. “A Sign” pulls in its broken lovers Purple noon“Paralyzed” on the grid. The rippling, doomy closer 'Letting Go' is a tropical Balearic reggae cousin of 'Time to Walk Away' (to say nothing of Chris Isaak's transcendent 'Wicked Game'). Where “Reckless Desires” used koto rhythmic figures to stay aloft, “Second Sight” is content to deploy the instrument as a vaporwave glissando.
Notes from a quiet life is, somewhat unexpectedly, the first Washed Out album produced by Greene himself. Perhaps he cleared the fog to better reveal the classic structure of his songwriting. Results sound great: punchy snares and wide mouth synth bass. And to an unprecedented degree, his voice – a careful baritone reminiscent of Beck at his most plaintive – takes up much of the space. He brings a nobility to the expected places: the tender “Got Your Back,” with the lullaby of a wordless hook, and the sparkling “Wondrous Life,” which almost flips into a power ballad. But it's also present in the dissolute lovers' rock of “A Sign,” a soulful song that derives its warmth from overthinking (“But I think I'm falling hard/Am I'm Go too far?”) rather than traction. “Say Goodbye” is a slow groove of a breakup song, so sure and frictionless it's like being sent home in a hovercar.
