COSMONAUTS is highly recommended for fans of dark hip-hop/techno, weird electronics and cinematic music or anyone looking for the soundtrack to a dark cold night of head nodding goodness.
The soundtrack to a dark cold night
COSMONAUTS is a July 2020 self-release from Dead Circuits. The tracks herein evolved from a live performance which was scrapped when the UK (where Dead Circuits is based) went into lockdown. Clearly not one to let the time go wasted, Dead Circuits made the most of a bad situation to develop a solid recording of formidable tracks. COSMONAUTS is like the soundtrack of a videogame where the goal is to survive the insanity of claustrophobia and one’s own mind.
“Migration” deftly uses disjointed chopped-up samples of conversations over solid thudding beats to set up the solid foundation for ethereal keyboards to waft in from woolen reverb drenched climates to set up shop in the rafters of the mind and loom. The song develops slowly like a threat over the course of twelve minutes yet doesn’t overstay its welcome at all during this time. “Portal” hisses, whines and weaves into hearing like the slow arrival of a dark, oily steam-driven machine purpose built for a forgotten task on an abandoned wharf in a deserted port of call where the ghosts of better days hang around to haunt themselves. “Celestial Plane” loops chopped-up vocals, siren-like modulated feedback and a simple, repetitive (perfect) beat like the score to a cyber heist slowly gone horribly wrong. “The Visitor” sounds like the operating room of an alien hospital where physicians from another world try to save a patient despite no understanding of their physiognomy. “Solar Flare” unfolds like a Mercury dawn, with a burning hot sun too close and the cold dark of space only steps away, its wailing synthetic tones and slow echoing leads unfolding while a chugging, heavy handed beat thrives on pounding its way through any and all obstructions towards the boiling edge of doom. “Kazmic” closes out the album with a slowly unfolding panoramic view of this strange, abandoned landscape of Dead Circuits’ creation as slow beats and bass conduct a simple, spiraling dance into the dusk of fadeout.
COSMONAUTS is highly recommended for fans of dark hip-hop/techno, weird electronics and cinematic music or anyone looking for the soundtrack to a dark cold night of head nodding goodness.
COSMONAUTS is available on Bandcamp.
