A Voyage to Summer

Alex Gimeno, better known as Ursula 1000, is a Brooklyn-based producer who has been making groovy sounds for over 15 years now. On Voyeur, he’s back making the tracks that audiences have grown to expect, but he has also expanded on that sound. This is an album that seems just cruel to release in the middle of fall. Each song is bound to take listeners to a tropical paradise and cause a longing for much warmer weather.

The lead single from Voyeur is the extremely chill “Faded Denim Wash,” which feels like a stripped down disco track. The start of the track sounds like the beginning of the Steve Winwood hit song, “Higher Love.” It then gradually develops into a Stevie Wonder-inspired type sound. It’s a soothing track all around, and immediately sends good vibes. It feels like it came straight out of the 70’s or 80’s. All in all, “Faded Denim Wash” just seems to be a clear representation of everything that Gimeno wants this album to be about: summer, fun and light dance tracks.

“Clap Your Hands” is the second single, and it seems to have a big band and retro sort of vibe. It’s a track that dares listeners to dance along with it. The sound is infectious from the first horn until the last bass sound. This one seems to take things to a time even before the 70’s or 80’s, back to a 1950’s beach party vibe. While it does seem to draw from past decades, it also looks to the future and what is coming next in music. Ursula 1000 has always been a project that has focused more on the music and less on actual lyrics, and this is no exception. The only lyrics are a voice repeating “Clap your hands,” and a few other voices saying “1, 2, 3, 4” in both English and Spanish. While that can get repetitive, the sound itself is constantly changing and is very memorable as a whole.

The remaining seven tracks are as just as mesmerizing and genre bending as the last. Gimeno experiments with pop, dance, disco, funk, electro and much more. Voyeur is the mark of the next chapter from Ursula 1000 and the sky is truly the limit from here. Once you get past the cold hard fact that it is no longer summer, this is the perfect album to use as an escape to a much warmer and more relaxing time.