couples counseling is the solo project of Virginia de las Pozas, currently based in Philly. She released her third collection of songs in the form of an EP entitled self service.
The music plays around with the aesthetic/periphery of vaporwave with stuttery electronic dreamscapes and post-digital visual art, but it’s distinctly something other. The difference is mainly in the way that Virginia uses her voice to drive the production and atmosphere of the tracks – the project takes inspiration from the glitchy, digitally-saturated fellow producer Holly Herndon.
couples counseling’s production style is to often modulate and stutter her vocals between pitches, multi-layering them into a blanket of sound. Audio snippets of her voice are manipulated into instruments: in “finger trap”, we hear her modulated sighs arrange themselves into a synth melody that rapidly pans left and right. On “RE” she sings: “seperation, regeneration / forcefully breeding a sentiment” before her voices dissolves into a tapestry of bubble pops and backwards loops.
Unlike her previous releases, self service is more focused, more intense. The synths are harsher and less “dreamy”, and it definitely sounds like the work of a producer mastering her own technique.
You can DL couples counseling’s music on bandcamp here.
