While most associate the sound Lofi with the viral phenomenon that is Lofi Girl’s 24/7 Youtube stream of “beats to relax/study to,” the genre is a far more complex and fascinating subculture. Using the power of the internet, few other indie music scenes have managed to eschew the label machine and still amass a global audience in the millions. And all this, most likely, from someone’s bedroom.
The memefication of Lofi Girl funnelled Lofi into an unfortunate categorisation as ‘algorithm music,’ and the rise of AI has done the genre no favours either – it’s casual, downtempo electronica an easy formula for computers to appropriate en masse.
South African brothers Mama Aiuto and Daphné (Benjamin and Connor McCarthy) are reminders of the bedroom-producer as artist, not aesthetic. The producers and frequent collaborators are notorious in Lofi circles for their taste-making EPs that avoid the generic, algorithm-friendly pitfalls of the “beats to study to” stereotype, delivering vivid, tactile homages to 90s boom bap.
Their latest EP, Casual Audio, thrives in textures. Released via Platoon, the five track project is an exercise in smoothness, oozing Mama Aiuto’s signature “jazz vibes” and languid, soft-focus hip-hop beats over layers of fuzzy vinyl crackles tape hiss. “I Still Miss You” builds itself around a looped, filtered vocal refrain that colours the soundscape with melody, while on “Crown Achievement,” jazz-inflected chord progressions melt into crisp, snapping snares, striking a delicate and affecting balance between urgency and inertia.
Much of current “chillhop” Lofi risks fading into the background (and a good portion of it is being churned out to do exactly that). Mama Aiuto and Daphné, though, take command of the background itself. There’s a nostalgia to Casual Audio that will resonate with South African listeners.
It’s the sound of rides home from school, dozing off in the afternoon sun. Of afterhours Heart FM echoing across an empty garage shop as you pick up a late night snack or box of entjies after the jol. Using these familiar soundbites and ambience of everyday life as the foundation for everything else makes for a visceral listening experience. It’s seriously stunning production.
Sure, Casual Audio doesn’t reinvent the Lofi wheel – but it gives you a good example of that wheel at the top of its range. It’s another evocative statement from two brothers who understand that the best Lofi beats “to chill to” don’t fill space. They create it.
