EP REVIEW: FERN. – s/t
Me and my colleagues have been on a local pop binge as of late, and we’ve been planning on putting some of our thoughts about the current pop scene in our TFL zine later in the year. We’ve pointed out some big highs and lows about our local pop scene. Such content might take an entire article to write about it, but that’s not what we’re going to talk about here. In the past year, we’ve seen a bunch of local pop stars making it in the global scene: names like Jess Connelly, Mellow Fellow, BP Valenzuela, and No Rome. All mentioned artists have earned their name in their own respective scenes but there are some artists who are still on the come up. That’s where “Fern.” comes in. Fern. is a young up and coming singer-songwriter and producer based in Metro Manila.
Lately, the newly signed Universal Records artist had been getting some traction by producing for some artists in the show business such as Julie Ann San Jose, Claudia Barretto, and also a singer-songwriter, TALA. Releasing some singles here and there ever since the first quarter of 2018, I finally got the free time to check the Fern’s entire material. I sat down to give his debut self-titled 6-track EP a spin.
The opener “Into You” is the first major single. Evident pop staples are immediately apparent such as wavy synths, twinkly pianos, and Fern’s voice that’s smooth like your old-school r&b influenced artist in the mid 00’s. The second track “Are You Mine?” deepens the mood and Fern’s character by adding the sub bass, the layered vocals, the pitched down voice as the bass drops in the hooks. “Wanna Dance With You” has some great synth and buildup spots as well but my main issue here is that Fern never gave that much justice to his singing, the production ends up carrying the slack of the entire track. “Lie 2 Me” is treated as a mini-ballad for the singer-songwriter and has great, intimate production. But then again, the singing end up being a slog to listen through until the unexpected appearance of a guitar solo; which had been disappointingly cut short to give way for more of the shy vocals. “Started” has an odd mixing: the vocals felt like it was recorded somewhere else, and it doesn’t come together with the rest of the song. The guitars ended up sounding buried in the mix. That and the last track “Lost” doesn’t feel consistent as an actual pop music/r&b/synth pop experience. “Lost” has this weird rap performance that doesn’t even feel belong in the track. It could be assumed that said verse was a throwaway, for there is nothing worth highlighting in the track.
Fern’s self-titled release has its highs and lows, but mostly has its reasonable lows. The self-produced EP suffers from being average, but wait, with great average-ness of a project doesn’t necessarily mean it’s that bad of a reception in hindsight. Fern’s classy sound of electronic synth pop falls short in adventure and lacks an actual engaging vocal performance. The EP sometimes feels like you’re going to sleep but the beats keep you awake, the lyrics make you want to listen to something else other than projects that sounds just like this.
In short, the vocal performance doesn’t quite make it up for the clean production, sadly. Imagine LANY given a chance to mellow down from the dancier tracks and act all sappy or if you ask Lorde to never mature from her Pure Heroine-era material for only six tracks, you’d get Fern. With that being said, Fern the producer bops with potential but Fern as the singer-songwriter needs to work on his singing. It lacks that star power and ends up sounding like he drags his voice along with some half-decent beats, making some cuts here feel like a waste of space and a good napping session.
Support the art & the artist: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7KoTRIhjkIQy2L8RjWDpfF