Engaging 2024 via the language of machinations driven by futuristic numbers feels like a strangely appropriate place to begin the New Year. Although, in this world of upside-down nostalgia you sometimes don’t quite know in which direction music is pointing you. Is it evolving, or folding in on itself? Thankfully, this series of pieces are wonderfully charged with the charm of retrospective optimism, tunnelling deep into the mystery of memory. While launching Scanner’s brand new label for albums.
Referencing all of those names associated with creating this uniquely exciting world of twisted, electrical locations formed from far-flung imaginations. The connections circling a host of early 1960’s pioneers are plain to discern, pausing for thought, gathering data while locked and lost to bygone eras. Perhaps this music was always about connection to time and its passage, or about transporting you elsewhere like the fiction of science. However, and this is integral to the nature of the album, before lazily painting all of this into a box and labelling it, listen closer.
Alchemeia is so much more than history, for every brush of black and white expectation is the colour of modern thinking, accompanied by the brilliant sound of contemporary ideas being ignited. You might learn from the past but equally, you create the future. Try the sassy sway of Sestinea with its classic Chicago bassline plus an exotic flurry of lounge motifs, or the sense of reflective loss suggested by the exceptional Comtesea and its grainy, sensory landscapes as they try to break free.
Then there are the worlds in-between such as where Octinea exists. Found in carefully crafted atmospheres containing voices and possible drum punctuation which feed at streams of Pink Floyd’s initial, psychedelic consciousness. Likewise, the joy of repetition is also signified by the album’s glorious ending, Visitea.
A marvel for modern times.
Release: January 19
https://scanner.bandcamp.com/album/alchemeia
https://scannerdot.com
Design by Matthew Shaw MDSD
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