With a name like LOL Boys, Jerome Potter and Markus Garcia wouldn't be expected to make serious electronic music. Yet the most striking thing about the Changes EP, the Los Angeles/Montreal duo's debut for Friends of Friends, is its sobriety. Though the Boys are probably best known for more party-oriented tunes (and the awesomely goofy YouTube videos that accompany them), the four originals on offer here take their youthfully digital sound to a more contemplative and wholly earnest place. It's a good look for them.
The EP was apparently constructed sans samples, an approach deeply apparent from the opening reveille of MIDI-tastic trumpet on "Changes." But as self-consciously artificial as their sound design may get, Potter and Garcia take care to emphasize its beating heart: whether it's that trumpet, their obviously synthesized bells, or the cartoonishly pitch-shifted vocal, they infuse it with a world-weariness that feels all too real. (Anenon's "One Take Cover" of the track, one of two reworks included here, employs live instruments but tellingly doesn't sound any more human; even Shlohmo's showier remix aims to get you sniffling.) "Mind's Clouded" is more emotionally ambiguous, with a woozy beat that's slow to settle and an equally agitated fuzzy melody. "Get Close to Me" trades in more straightforward beauty, its plaintive (but never desperate) vocal whispering through sheets of rain. Expansive and uplifting, "Don't Want You" comes closest to a big moment as anything here, but the LOL Boys remain wonderfully dialed back and worlds away from the sort of outbursts you might expect.
Tracklist: LOL Boys - Changes EP
 01. Changes feat. Heart Streets
02. Mind's Clouded feat. Heart Streets
03. Get Close To Me feat. Angelina Lucero
04. Don't Want You feat. Angelina Lucero
05. Changes (Anenon One Take Cover)
06. Changes (Shlohmo Remix)
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