I can’t remember the last time I had such a turbulent relationship with a release from one of my favourite artists. The Giant, camoufly’s new effort has been a really challenging listen for me and this article is coming together after an insane number of sessions. After the opulence of Apotheosis, my expectations for camoufly’s second EP were very, very high. But the truth is that I had absolutely no idea what to expect, nor what I’d wanted to hear from him. Something like his iconic remixes? A whole new sound? All and nothing. This weird indecision led me to develop a certain toxic and senseless tension towards this release, which inevitably affected my initial approach to The Giant. As a matter of fact, against all odds, the first listen left me extremely disappointed. It sounded flat, colorless, off-brand. Almost rushed. Quite alarmed by this, I, therefore, decided to take a pause for reflection, leave this review halfway and try to listen to The Giant again calmly once away from the stress of the daily routine.
A few weeks later…
Now that I’m enjoying this EP lying by the sea under the Croatian sun, well it’s a whole different story. Far away from all the hustle and bustle that had overshadowed its beauty, The Giant began to shine with a new, bright light. With a clear mind and with the right time to devote to it, I finally managed to understand and appreciate camoufly’s raid in unknown territories and his growth both artistically and personally.
The five tracks are a little big adventure through the bright and buoyant music world of this (still) mysterious producer. They are all different. All unique. But all, unequivocally descendants of the kawaii bounce. The opening track, ‘rituals’, could easily be the point of convergence between a laxcity album and a Four Tet album. The flow is bouncy, bubbly, and hypnotic while the virtuosities that camoufly paints above it evoke images of unknown lands and mysterious cultures. Here, I totally fell in love with the ending. ‘Million years’ is simply incredible. Indescribable. This one is going to be a hit. No doubt. ‘Pyramids’, which sounds like the natural follow up of ‘Hello Darling’ to me, has been already described in an extensive write-up by John. ‘Sakura,’ as the name suggests, is the most “exotic” piece of the EP as it features some brilliant samples that I’d die to know in which remote region of the web they were discovered. I find the vocals particularly sublime.
Beside the music, it’s impossible to not notice that for The Giant camoufly has drawn fully from classical culture for the title and artwork. The subject of the stunning cover is the gigantomachy, painted by Giulio Romano between 1532-1535 at Palazzo Tè in Mantova. Regarding the concept, camoufly described it with these words.
“To me, The Giant is something that we have to fight towards every day. It’s like when you think you got over something, you think you did something good and you can rest, but suddenly you’ve got to deal with something else. ‘The Giant’ is our life’s pains and difficulties.
Sometimes I feel that some things in life are too big to fight. Maybe someone else experiences the same thing as I do. Over the years I have had to deal with a lot of troubles in my private life, so this episode means a lot to me. It gives me a lot of hope and makes me think that we have to be proud of what we do, of our everyday achievements. At some point we have to believe in ourselves like people believe in a God, putting our life in our own hands, thinking that we have the power to get over things even if they get tougher than they ever were. And just when we have dealt with our lowest lows, then we can appreciate our highest highs.” – camoufly
If you’re waiting to see if there will be a physical release of this EP as well (I just got my vinyl copy of Apotheosis), you can stream The Giant below or on your favorite platform here.
