Ernest Greene has always been the kind of guy who could soundtrack a sunset without trying. Back in 2011, he was the “bedroom producer” face of chillwave before anyone knew what that word even meant. By 2020, he was still at it, only now he’d traded the hazy lo-fi collages for something shinier, more cinematic, and, as he put it, “a return to traditional songwriting.” The record was Purple Noon, and Greene swore he wrote it mostly on piano instead of scavenging samples like some sonic raccoon.
“I’d gotten tired of doing it the other way,” he told me. “Mr. Mellow was like this huge sonic experiment. With Purple Noon it was chords, melodies, lyrics first. Then production.” Translation: less weed-clouded sketchbook, more actual songs.
He called the album a “soundtrack to sunsets,” which sounds corny until you realize he actually means it. A trip through Greece left him obsessed with those golden 45-minute stretches of stillness. The video for “Too Late” was supposed to be filmed in Italy, until COVID turned the world into a series of locked doors and canceled flights. So Greene pivoted—asked fans to send in their own sunsets, stitched them together into a video collage. Quarantine escapism packaged neatly in four minutes.
The songs themselves are all about affairs—not just candlelit ones, but the messy stuff too. “It’s about love affairs and all the places you can find yourself,” Greene said. “Meeting someone new, that spark… then two songs later, it’s already falling apart.” He laughed about the sequencing: hope in one track, ashes in the next. “By the last song,” he admitted, “it’s pretty depressing.”
For someone who once swore he’d never do an acoustic ballad, Greene delivered “Game of Chance”—bare guitar, stacked harmonies, and a singer who doesn’t think he’s much of a singer. “If you’d asked me a couple years ago, I’d have said never. But it worked. And now it’s one of my favorites.”
Greene admitted he’s always thinking about the “Washed Out sound,” as much a burden as it is a brand. “That’s the problem to solve—how to keep whatever people associate with me, but still evolve. Hopefully I keep cracking the puzzle.”
Of course, some of that puzzle-cracking came from side gigs. He’d started writing for other artists, including a song for Sudan Archives. “Her music’s got that R&B and trap palette. Working with her really influenced Purple Noon. Don’t expect a trap beat, but I stole little moments.” Which basically means we’re five years away from a Washed Out banger with hi-hat rolls and 808s, whether he admits it yet or not.
All this from a guy who once worked part-time in a library before getting drafted as the reluctant poster child for a micro-genre. In 2011 he told me he stumbled into it by accident: “I was self-taught, doing non-traditional stuff that made sense to me. Suddenly there was a name for it.” A year later, backstage at Forecastle Festival, he was still brushing off the “movement” talk: “I don’t think there’s any exclusive club. It’s just easier now to make good music with simple equipment.” By 2020, he’d already outlived the genre tag he never asked for.
“Simple love songs,” he said of Purple Noon. “I don’t know how much hope there is for the character in them, but that’s what I keep coming back to.” Call it chillwave, dream-pop, or just music for people who like sunsets. Whatever name you slap on it, Greene’s been doing it long enough to prove it’s not a trend—it’s a worldview.
Listen to the interview above and then check out the videos below.
