Jake Lazovick always seems to be re-imagining his approach to songwriting. Over the past two years, he’s released some worthy records of introspective acoustic punk under his own name, noisy rock songs with Foozle, and electronic pop as Sitcom. His personal discography includes some worthy listening, like the 2013’s Snow Joke, a candid solo tape of earnest earworms. 100% Take Home/Good Morning, a split cassette of mellow hooks and stretched-out anti-folk released last year with Whatever, Dad, is similarly great.
With Sitcom, Lazovick connects some dots between the scrappy twee of his Double Double Whammy peers (a label for which Lazovick does design work) and the more experimental art-oriented underground of his hometown, Baltimore. Drum set is his most careful collection to date, made using “software, microphones, various objects & samples.” It includes 18 tracks, but eight are one-second-long tracks with titles like “kick”, “click”, “sound”, and “tap”, each a quick clip of what the title suggests, breaking down some of the elements at play. On the ten that are actually songs, Lazovick layers bright skittering synths and blown-out beats with muffled handclaps, whistling melodies, running water, and other creative percussive elements. The effect is an intimate homemade electronic pop album centered around his monotone lyrics, the same recognizable voice that’s been running through his entire discography.
