Double LP
The highly divisive Pretty V rises from the Bandcamp compound for a first time physical album release for south London imprint Life Is Beautiful. No other way to interpret Destiny of Illusion than as post-Dean Blunt music, albeit the kind removed of any prankster compulsion. These are autodidactic, genre-fluid half-songs built from multiple half-familiar samples and sounds (and quite possibly stolen riffs), seemingly driven by little more than a singular, unflinching desire to exist. If you're the kind of person who hears an artist like, say, Wesley Willis or Jad Fair, and turns the dial down, then Pretty V might not be your guy, an avidly 'amateur' performer with few chops and many tendencies to fall in and out of tune. So what of it? What's most important is the desire, and the man V has it in spades, not far off an 'indie' Lil B who is well aware that one step forward is one step towards success. It's hard not to be skeptical of the involvement of more, shall we say, sophisticated studio hands (and the high pricing), but the sincerity of Pretty V himsef is harder still to question, a man happy to try and die on the vine. There are a lot of songs here, of varying length and sense of completion, but all of which share the same sense of - yes, it's that word again - self-determination. Destiny of Illusion might well prove divisive, but there should be agreement on a single point - it's a good thing that such a record should exist in the first place. Hold tight to what that means.
FFO: Dean Blunt, Alex G, Wesley WIllis, Daniel Johnston, Mark William Lewis, Jad Fair
