When listening to Spectramorphic Iridescence one consistently gets the impression that we’re mining a previously untapped vein of lost archival tracks, as if there’s an underground storage vault full of this stuff just waiting to be lovingly restored and released.
It is now officially an annual occurrence for Digitalis Recordings to offer up some of the most surprising and intriguing synth and experimental albums of the year. 2012 was notable in particular for Perispirit’s nutjob Spiritual Church Movement and Discoverer’s ace retrofest, Tunnels, a broader, catchier and better produced synth album you’d be hard pressed to find. In 2013, fans of the former have already been handed Sculpture’s surprisingly hooky weird-out fest Slime Code, and now it’s time to address the latter with LA-based [PHYSICS]’s new LP Spectramorphic Iridescence.
Though connected to the ad and retro movie/video-fueled vaporwave movement via his involvement with the Amdiscs label who released his Love Electric cassette EP, Spectramorphic Iridescence is a much more focused, standalone record devoid of direct references and kitsch samples, one that frequently flashes with such brilliance it beggars belief that its release has been so low key.
The bubbling neon keys, bass bounce and factitious felicity of “Anodyne Dream” recall the gaudy dazzle and crass consumerism of TV from the early eighties, all synapse-frying glitz to cover the non-product sham. You see, there’s a sinister, dystopian undercurrent running beneath the chunky, retro-futurist imagery conjured by [PHYSICS]’s panoply of computerized commotion, as heard in the piercing analog drops and sweeps that scythe through a treacly mass of sci-fi bleeps and robotic drudgery in “Gender Amplification.”
The shattered percussion and thunking arpeggiators of the “Isosceles Trapezoid” describe a high-contrast, bustling metropolis full of indifferent pedestrians, traffic-controlled air cars and a sheen that barely hides that dystopian reality beneath its ultra-slick matte finish surfaces. The electrical power plant of “Realization” seethes with barely controlled energies, threatening to overload and go critical amidst tumultuous walls of noise.
Then there’s the dingy atmospherics and relentless locomotion of “Emerald Forest,” the Radiophonic outside-the-walls alien jungle environments of “The Keep” or the electromagnetic blasts of “Random Water” strewn with twittering digital insect life. In an inspired final twist, Spectramorphic Iridescence turns inward with the brooding bass lines, freewheeling, prismatic pads, crystalline chimes and piercing whistles of “Ultimate L.”
Though it lacks the generic, numbering-system naming conventions of the addictive Black Mill Tapes series by Pye Corner Audio, one consistently gets the impression when listening to Spectramorphic Iridescence that we’re mining a previously untapped vein of lost archival tracks, and that there’s an underground storage vault full of this stuff just waiting to be lovingly restored and released. We can only hope so as, whoever [PHYSICS] really is—Digitalis are becoming infamous for incognito releases by experienced and known artists—this is an amazingly accomplished and brilliantly assembled work that is more than just another synth record and far more than the sum of its parts.
Spectramorphic Iridescence is available on Digitalis. [Release Page | Bandcamp]
