Don't let the name fool you, Basketball Nightmare do not harken back to 8-bit, or even 16-bit renderings of pop music, though some of you might hold a special place for the video game that inevitably inspired their name. And don't let one or two tracks fool you either: the New Zealanders behind this project betray a wide range of approaches to melancholy dream pop. There's the speckled ambience of an arpeggio-spitting synth tripping over long-tone saw toothes on tracks like “Space”, into the achingly half-timed mantras of “Come Down” (they seem to have their titling down) running into pretty, spinning synth hooks, and the dirty baritone in “Poltergeist The Supernaturatural Being”.
Basketball Nightmare, “Come Down”
Basketball Nightmare, “Poltergeist the Supernatural Being”
Download Nervous Energy here.
