By mixing other worldly instrumentation into a seabed of calm and refuge, Fiction City crafts surreal sonic landscapes.
From Siberia and released on Dublin’s Psychonavigation in February 2016, the latest full length by Fiction City (aka Mike Belov) has had some time to settle. We covered their self-released Nova EP in 2011 which yielded an exploration into the depths of blackness that reside in the human psyche.
With The Shell, there are elements of glistening ambient trip-hop, R&B and brisk breaks where artists such as Tortoise, The Future Sound of London and Portishead reside. The title track takes on echoes from the past, tantalizing, chilled electronics at the forefront as pieces like “Morphine” slide through emotive shoegazing atmospherics and sensual guitar flickering. Tribal glitch forms on “Omega Teen” as it fades into a tranquil, serene escape.
Fiction City delivers expansive sonic arrays—broken shards of dark electrical bits are balanced among smoothed beats as featured on “Inside the Shell,” a highlight for these ears. Seemingly content to glide by genre confines, The Shell is a relaxed and chilled album that manages to delve into and out of electronica’s more solemn side. By mixing other worldly instrumentation into a seabed of calm and refuge, Fiction City crafts surreal sonic landscapes.
The Shell is available on Psychonavigation.
