Cassette Review // DeLorea Pontiac "Horizons" (Sunny Tapes)

https://deloreapontiac.bandcamp.com/album/horizons //

To put it in its simplest form, the reason why I like DeLorea Pontiac is because these songs remind me of something I've heard before but it is something which I can't quite put my finger on.   Isn't that really what we all want in music?  Sure, hearing something new is great and all, but hearing something that has that familiarity is a different kind of new and it just makes you feel like you've been listening to this cassette all of your life and that makes you love it even more.

Through beats and synths come the sounds of pop, R&B and a whole lot of soul.   One of the other things I really enjoy about "Horizons" is that at times it feels like a sound out of the 1980's or 1990's.   Yet at other times it can feel modern in a way which I cannot describe- like there is some artist out there currently making music like this but I just don't know who because maybe I don't listen to them.

A lot of my favorites come out within here though.   In an older sense, I hear Cyndi Lauper and Madonna.   In a new sense, I hear Polly Scattergood, Demi Lovato and Lana Del Ray.    For somewhere in between, I definitely hear some PJ Harvey and at times it takes you into that time of the mid to late 1990's where a dark song would come on the radio (like a Portishead, for example) and you'd hear it and then fall in love with the band though you'd never hear them on the radio again.

At times, I can hear a movie from the 1980's in these songs.   It's the soundtrack to "Gleaming The Cube", which more people should be talking about.    It's the soundtrack to a 1990's movie as well though, something like "Hackers" or "The Crow", but then it becomes modern where you could take a song and have it in some big budget new movie.   I want to say like a Michael Bay film but that might just be because I watched that new movie he did on Netflix the other day.

This cassette is just powerful.  It's that sound you might have found on cassette back before CDs came about and yet there is enough modern influence that you might not see it the exact same way.    If this doesn't hit you in a strong way like other artists have hit me but in a few and far between way then I can only imagine you're listening to this wrong because after listening to "Horizons" way too many times I feel like DeLorea Pontiac should be a household name.