Ultra Truth is a must have album not only for expressing Daniel Avery’s roots and shouting revival music to old heads, but for providing history to young electronic music fans in a contemporary couverture.
Exhaling nostalgia while sounding fresh and exciting
Daniel Avery’s new album Ultra Truth, just released on Mute/Phantasy, is an homage to old school electronic music. Full of references from the past, gathering beautifully selected timbres, nineties beat signatures and atmosphere, this work exhales nostalgia while sounding fresh and exciting.
Introducing the album in a quite mal du sciècle motif, “New Faith” pours a heavy saturation crescendo as a piano progresses, which sets a tone of disillusionment and opens the sensibility of the listener to what’s coming next. But before it ends, a caring female voice states that despite these dark times, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. So, the title track’s marvelous melody rockets you directly to distant Aphex Twin memories, in a mix of sadness and exhilaration. What a lovely journey! A fan favorite for sure. Old school vibes continue on “Wall of Sleep” as downtempo trip hop beats roll under dreamy synth pads and HAAi’s loopy vox. “The Slow Bullet,” “Near Perfect,” “Ache,” and “Overflowing With Escape” serve as well-placed interludes that create either soothing or saturated transitions for a breath while maintaining a dream-like sense of suspension.
Full of references from the past ::
Elevating the BPM, “Devotion” accelerates a big beat percussion to a range similar to hardcore and keeps the mood high. On the other hand, “Only” breaks the throwback mode by slowing it down and adding extreme distortion and reverb in contrast to surprisingly sexy vocals. “Spider” proceeds with chilled down electro elements so colorful that could instigate synesthesia symptoms. On “Higher,” Daniel praises rave times with compression sucking amen breaks, a fat saw bassline and sparkling melodic synths. “Collapsing Sky,” a term previously mentioned on the intro track, brings pleasing early ambient feelings rather than what the title might suggest.
“Lone Swordsman,” another high point of the album, cuts deep as it bleeds emotion with pounding grooves and marvelous sweeping harmonic design. Although “Chaos Energy” may express randomness, it evolves in three distinct phases, starting as a mysteriously textured electro that transitions to a reverbing hardstep, and then grows into a dirty high-octane tune. “Heavy Rain” closes the experience on a high note with dance floor driven intensity that gathers graceful Vangelis sounding synths, strong low frequency depth and a misty ambience.
Ultra Truth is a must have album not only for expressing Daniel Avery’s roots and shouting revival music to old heads, but for providing history to young electronic music fans in a contemporary couverture.
Ultra Truth is available on Mute. [Bandcamp | Site]
