Within the ever-shifting creative parameters of electronic music making, Com Truise’s Seth Haley shows a remarkable commitment to consistency. The Silicon Tare EP is Haley’s latest advancement toward perfecting a narrow brand of retro house beat music that he’s made his specialty over the last several years of releases on acclaimed indie label Ghostly International. As chillwave fades further from relevance and many of Haley’s independent contemporaries turn to their jazz influences, hip-hop, and various veins of modern techno, Haley remains an almost over-reliable constant.
Silicon Tare is exactly as you remember Com Truise: spaced out, groove-heavy, approaching ephemeral. “Sunspot” is the EP’s conventional opener, featuring a gradual instrumental build that rides on a pumping kick drum and a measured bassline that drives right into the almost spontaneous ebb and flow of “Forgive”, the cautiously hook-driven “Diffraction” and the EP’s title track, and finally closes on “du Zirconia”, another meticulously-crafted build-up tune. The throughlines are, as always, Haley’s lush neon synthesizers, uniquely equalized drum kits, and loads of reverb and delay. Five tracks is the perfect amount of Com Truise to ingest at once to avoid sugar rush, and Silicon Tare works wonderfully as a self-contained piece in that regard.
But in a crowded field of ‘80s-inspired beat-makers, Haley limits himself by never abandoning his comfort zone — even as he deserves credit for patenting his own particular sonic imprint. In simpler terms, Silicon Tare is a Com Truise EP for Com Truise fans, and as nice as it may be to add five more perfectly calibrated tracks to the collection, it seems like an empty gesture at the same time.