Coming from Bay Area indie-electro songwriter and producer Frank Ivy, Deja Vu opens with a video slowly following a man into a shop to purchase a drink. We are 20% through the experience and have been confronted with our COVID age, in the form of a shop worked in a face mask, before the melody actually kicks in.
When it does happen however, it’s worth it. Deja Vu has a dreamy, disorientated sound. There is a glossy, sun-kissed West Coast feel here, evidenced in Ivy’s highly processed vocal delivery, but it also feels distinctively mediterranean. Synth melodies drop like heavy acetate as woozy psychedelic chords play out, the music wrapping in on itself. Deja Vu sounds like Frank Ocean fronting a Tame Impala track, and that’s a sound I can get behind.
Musically, Ivy typically starts his writing process with an instrumental melody before crafting lyrics, which in turn further refine and shape the melody. It’s a circular process that in some ways feels appropriate for a song called Deja Vu. The lyrics here are deliberately ambiguous, and it lends the song more of a feeling than a thought. I find myself enjoying existing in the space, without knowing exactly what that space is.