When Eric Elbogen relocated his Brooklyn, NY home to the foggy, rain-drenched streets of Seattle, WA, something just happened to change in him. Maybe it’s to be expected when you uproot your life for a whole new coast, but it seems the architect behind indie pop outfit Say Hi is taking the shift pretty well. The Wishes and the Glitch is a charming effort at reestablishment - puppy-eyed vocals that sway over jumpy synths map each of his movements as if they were completely new to him. Tracks like “Magic Beans and Truth Machines,” “Spiders,” and “Back Before We Were Brittle” fall on fast-motion digital folk, with Elbogen’s low-key singing tip-toeing over blushes of whimsical guitars. But by far, the best tune on Wishes… is the most disturbing. Starting off innocently enough with electronic womps and nourishing harmonies, “Toil and Trouble” is a disconcerting stalker manifesto on the rules of love that plays on nervous chords tripping over themselves. “She’s gonna love me. Oh yes, she will” Elbogen says with a sneering smirk. That tune aside Elbogen’s new persona isn’t that hard to love.
--Annamarya Scaccia
