Memory keeper. Mostly music and movies, plus some series and video games. Obscure darkness meets pop culture glow.
Honestly I don’t follow Faithless that closely so I’m not sure how much this record fits the overall body of work, but personally it checks all my boxes that I expected and wanted from a new Faithless album. Not exactly the uptempo party hits but rather the midtempo electronica, which has this vibe of landing somewhere on the Booka Shade-Bonobo axis. I can also see how the new collaborators bring new colors and that’s pretty good, like the voices of Suli Breaks and Nathan Hall.
Half moody jazzy tunes, half mid-tempo mellow house beats, nice and relaxing. The title track and Moral Dilemmas are the peak points, the previous reminding me of Miles Davis’ electronic explorations.
All I can think of while listening to this is how much I miss live music. I understand there are way more severe consequences of the pandemic in the world out there, but what makes me go nuts in my little world of my own is that I cannot go to live music events. Jump around at a concert with bodies smashing into one another. Barely hear a friend over screamning guitars and snearing drums with a beer in hand just to cut the sentence when the chorus hits us and shout the words from the top of our lungs. Dance in a barely lit dancefloor with beautiful techno thumping in my ears taking me on so well know but still unexpected journeys. Close my eyes and see what the music paints in the darkness while cosmic peace melts with ecstatic bursts of joy, and open my eyes slowly to let the faint blinking of the neon through and carve illuminating runes in my retina. I miss the people sharing the moment, breathing the sweaty steam of everyone moving at the same time to the same rhythm. I miss these moments, and I miss the people that we share it with so much.
As the first notes started playing on this record I thought Reigns turned to a lighter mood since I fell in love with them with The House on the Causeway. I starts that way. Then they quickly delve into their home territory of eerie land where rock and electronic holds no real meanings—this music is not defined by its instruments but its super heavy atmosphere. It’s a beautiful wondering in a haunted garden with dark crimson roses, piercing thorns, and an ominous yet not at all depressing constant dusk.
Definitely techno for the dancefloor, but like with trance blended in. It’s not silly but still not serious.
It’s industrial metal with a heavy electronic drag. And most of all, even though it’s presented as a neo-noir cyberpunk aesthetic, I still feel a positive vibe in there. It’s not like one of those doomed self-deprecating whiners who suck all your willingness to live but this one rather pushes you to go go go and if there’s something in your way just crush through it. It has energy and fun.
This is easily one of my most influential albums that I came across in 2020. Modern technoid EBM with bubbling analog synths and tight industrial beats. It has all the dark beauty of any oldschool EBM but without the spotlight mainstreamism of some retro abusing modern electronic music. They are to EBM what Led Er Est was to post-punk goth rock—something new that understands the roots and fully lives in the present. Wonderful, fantastic music, soundtrack of my life material.
Epic synthwave cinematic style. Everything this guy has produced so far is gold.
Subsea trip with thumping, soft dub techno and ethereal ambient. Good for chilling, brilliant for work.
On a sidenote: when will this album cover trend stop, I wonder… Photos of parts of stuff so that it looks disturbing. It may have started around Dumb Flesh, but I wouldn’t mind if it stopped.
Random light-hearted electronic pop hit, probably my most listened to while easing into the summer this year. Another one of those being one by Dua Lipa, but that’s for another post.