A big thumbs-up to the Tea House for this lineup and all (not to mention the startlingly inconsequential price they’ll be asking for it at the door), but unfortunately for poor Ernest Greene, precocious South Carolinian songwriter, although his lo-fi home-recorded keyboards and hazy dreamscape atmospheres may be delicious (see “Feel It All Around”, in particular), they also may be on the edge of turning him into the poster child for another stupid navel-gazing genre that really shouldn’t exist in the first place. “Chillwave?” Come on, people. What, you couldn’t figure out how to squeeze a -core in there? We’re going to start making up genre names just to see if anybody notices. Should keep you on your toes.

But by all means, pick up a copy of his cassette-only EP and you’ll briefly be on the cutting edge of indie-pop hipness until the next thing comes around. Oh, hey, look, here it comes now. A fleeting reward, to put it mildly, but still.

Washed Out - Feel It All Around

The openers aren’t too shabby either: Casio-loving bedroom-recording bubblecore quartet Small Black, who are also serving as Greene’s backing band, and Pictureplane, whose “Goth Star” was hands-down one of the very best experimental porktronica numbers we heard last year.

Small Black - Despicable Dogs
Pictureplane - Goth Star