A veritable explosion of vintage electronic music brimming with sonic details and taking us through the next decade as each piece casts a beacon of light into the past.
A veritable explosion of vintage electronic music
Strange Selectors, a 16 track compilation, was released late September 2020 featuring an avalanche of synths and electronic nuggets rolled up into a myriad of formations that has been in rotation in our neck of the woods for a little while now. A moody / off-kilter and high-quality selection of musicians allows these 68-minutes to dip, dive and develop into fluid subsconscious streams.
From the the alluring, dreamlike downtempo strands of Elizabeth Joan Kelly opening the proceedings to the synthwave groove of Panamint Manse and Pulselovers, Strange Selectors gravitates towards unique sound sculptors running parallel to early ambient synthesizer tropes—bending sound into ethereal dimensions. Ambient and atmospheric projections and light pitter-patter beats from artists like Survey Channel and The Night Monitor offer glimpses of light shining between dangling cables. Buzzing modular activity streams from tracks by The Central Office of Information, Simon Klee, Camp Of Wolves and All My Friends Are Ghosts—dissolving lucid soundscapes and melodies into blissful and often operatic symphonies. There are moments of nostalgic Boards of Canada-inspired beauty as evidenced unsurprisingly by Faex Optim’s contribution—a shuffling and blooming beat-infested blurring of the senses. Drones and shaken tones appear to loosen up on tracks by Kieran Mahon as abstract blips’n bleeps flicker in the background courtesy of Rupert Lally. With an upbeat flare for technoid spheres and drifting rhythmic harmonies, Forest Robots is your go-to strange selector as Twelve Hour Foundation offers a glimpse into pulsing synthesizers and acid-washed melodies carving an upbeat musical sojourn. Closing with Soul Flask’s penchant for upbeat 70s/80s synthesizer blasts and instrumental spirit, this compilation is tied together succinctly with a wide-angle lense.
Strange Selectors is just that—a veritable explosion of vintage electronic music brimming with sonic details and taking us through the next decade as each piece casts a beacon of light into the past.
Strange Selectors is available on Werra Foxma. [Bandcamp]
