"God I hope that something good will last"
On the extra dreamy "Super Sentimental", Melbourne's Skube Burnell croons "you may not feel it now but these might be the golden years" floating through a mantric two chord prog and machine beats like a psychedelic multi-colored stream of consciousness. That line certainly feels foreign to these times, to 2020 but it is soon revealed that the song is about a relationship back in 2015 (or so it seems). 808's & Greatest Hits is Burnell's space rock, dreamy bedroom pop, lo-fi project and as the song starts to breath and get heavier with thick bass lines and synth stabs and what feels like actual drums as a framework for Burnell's hopeful narration, the song feels even more askew but beautifully so.
It is hard to describe the oddness here but I kept thinking about those vintage odd movies you would see in college either in film class or philosophy. Those that seemed to be faded over time, scratched and dying and shot on 16mm film. There too, was an eerie beauty full of mystery, nostalgia, sadness and scabbed over hope. That is what is courseing through my head now via "Super Sentimental".
"Super Sentimental" is the 3rd and final single from 808s & Greatest Hits from the album "Greatest Hits II" just released on December 11th (2020).
-Robb Donker Curtius
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808s & Greatest Hits is the recording project of Melbourne’s Skube Burnell. Though the project is helmed and the songs are conceptualised by Burnell, 808s & Greatest Hits’ recorded material and live shows feature a revolving cast of friends and collaborators who allow the project to take unconventional and exciting detours along the journey with Burnell at the wheel. Previous incarnations of 808s & Greatest Hits have seen Skube Burnell collaborate with a 5-piece band and other recordings and performances have captured 808s at its most intimate and introspective from Skube alone.
This time around, Skube Burnell’s spare time thanks to a locked down world allowed an album of songs to be crafted cleverly alongside Dylan Young (Way Dynamic, Snowy Band, Emma Russack). The album started as an eclectic suite of 16 songs written by Skube that were eventually honed and whittled down to a tidy selection of 8 - crafted, mutated and reworked to evolve into its final form - Greatest Hits II. Burnell begun working on the album in late 2019 whilst recording and mixing previous release Cabin Vibes. Early stages of recording took place between Skube and Dylan’s homes with Dylan serving as the primary producer and engineer on the tracks with John Lee from Phaedra also stepping in for ‘Maslow’s Pyramid’.
The tracking and recording was mostly completed by Skube and Dylan with some wildcard bandmates and friends jumping in in classic 808s fashion to fill the sonic gaps. Greatest Hits II’s seamless shifts between inner and outer worlds are thanks to creative experimentation in songwriting. The album kicks off with an instrumental that evokes opening film credits and from there on in, things head to new territories with each track. Songs traverse genre and thematic lands but the distance is always visible and reachable. The proof is in the pudding - some of the tracks deal with themes around alien abduction, self actualization, nostalgia, reassuring messages of positivity, airport terminals and mythical adventures - 808s is out of the Cabin and into the woods.
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