Lone acts as a guide through a futuristic, intergalactic rainforest full of Avatar-like creatures and massive landscapes. Even without the aid of song titles, the tracks lead the listener through a fantastical digital jungle of glowing waterfall drops, spliced African drums, flowing rivers of binary code, and massive caverns of glimmering stalactite tones.
I’ve played Garden Galaxy by Lone quite a few times, often in the presence of other people. Those other people didn’t necessarily know who Lone is—Matt Cutler, a British electronic music producer, remixer of Radiohead, and author of several impressive full length albums including his last, 2010’s Emerald Fantasy Tracks—but all of the people who I showed the album to had the same reaction: “This sounds like video game music,” they said. Sonic the Hedgehog, Jet Moto, Donkey Kong Country (specifically the underwater levels, said one listener…) and Wave Race 64 were some of the games mentioned, but everybody who heard Garden Galaxy could instantly relate to the record—and they liked it. Lone’s music does sound like something you’d hear as the soundtrack to a Sega Genesis or N64 title; it’s synthy, uptempo, and driving, but Garden Galaxy is much more than mere background music. It’s the whole game. Synthetic triangles, popping bubbles, and liquid waves float throughout the album as they’re punched and stabbed by galloping layers of sparkling percussion that create a digital playground for the ears. As his fourth LP Garden Galaxy sticks pretty closely to Lone’s signature synth driven sound.
For this album the blocky, digitized tones of Emerald Fantasy Tracks were done away with in favor of gliding synth colors and any hip hop flavor left over from 2008’s Lemurian has been replaced with polyrhythmic drum layers, but the record still ranges from fast-paced bombastic, yet mollified drum’n bass on tracks like the lead single “Crystal Caverns 1991” and “Cthulhu (ft. Machinedrum),” to massive, downtempo acid-techno tracks like “Earth’s Lungs” and “The Animal Pattern.” As might be indicated by the album’s song titles, there is a very real theme behind Garden Galaxy. Lone acts as a guide through a futuristic, intergalactic rainforest full of Avatar-like creatures and massive landscapes. Even without the aid of song titles, the tracks lead the listener through a fantastical digital jungle of glowing waterfall drops, spliced African drums, flowing rivers of binary code, and massive caverns of glimmering stalactite tones. “New Colour” kicks the album off with percussive neon synthesizer strikes and rolling open snare hits before moving into the discordant chord mashing in “Animal Pattern” and the frantic jungle rhythms of “As a Child,” the first track on the record featuring American producer Machinedrum. The record peaks at “Crystal Caverns 1991” before moving into the more abstract “Raindance” and juicy bombast of “Dream Girl/Sky Surfer.” Lone is a producer with a sound all his own. If you already like it, you’ll love Garden Galaxy. If you haven’t heard him yet, start anywhere.
Garden Galaxy is available on R & S. Buy at iTunes, Amazon or Juno.
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