Tracklist
- 01Soundsystem, Breathe! (feat. What is Your Name?)
- 02Windrider
- 03I Love U
- 04Like a Star
À propos
"Rising to stardom at just age 15, London’s TURQUOISEDEATH thought they’d reached terminal velocity. They arrived on the early 2020s Internet music landscape with a barrage of high-speed, pull-no-punches Drum and Bass releases: Dynamic, well-thought-out conceptual works that stood in stark contrast to much of the streamlined efforts that crowded the genre’s digital revival period. Their commitment to high-speed electronic grandiosity propelled them into the upper echelon of Internet dance music at large, but soon came the inevitable roadblock on their speeding journey to the top.
Years of burnout led the Londoner on a route that looped right back where they started; inspiration slowed to a halt, they drowned in artistic fatigue. But in a beautiful twist of fate, their next muse emerged out of the world turning slower — commutes on the London tube, the solemn and slow cycles of the ocean, and the essence of “breathing in” the sights and sounds around them led them towards a new artistic direction manifested on their latest EP. “Soundsystem, Breathe!”, their first release with Phosphilite, is the sound of an artist who finally found the beaming light atop the ocean’s surface, forcefully swimming upward and away from DnB as they take a viscerally euphoric gasp of fresh air.
Whether taking in train ride scenery, beachside wonder, or fragments of yesterday’s music, “Soundsystem, Breathe!”’s singular mix of new age, techno, and plunderphonics emphasizes the importance of appreciating every last bit of this high-speed world with as much sentimentality as you’d give to a romantic partner. Like waves sweeping up varieties of material as they build toward their apex, the EP’s quartet of tracks spend minutes-on-end stacking new refrains, samples, and motifs on top of each other in an astounding cascade — think the techno bliss of The Field reoriented out of its digitized chambers and into the visceral domain of nature. The subdued piano taps that lead the title track off stick around to the very end of the song, but by that end, they’re merely a small part of a glistening fabric made up of bongo slaps, squelching synth leads, and glorious synths. It’s all tied together by a cast of vocal samples—spanning from cutesy refrains to gorgeous yells—which act as the concluding flavor of this poignant tropical venture.
“Windrider” takes us away from the island surface and on a swift adventure over the water. Like the commutes on the London tube that inspired this essence of intimate velocity, TURQUOISEDEATH finds peace in appreciating everything that surrounds them even at fast speeds. To zip across stop after stop on high-speed rails is parallel to breathing in the music that surrounds you — another such inspiration stemming from attending a particularly resounding electronic show. You take a little of what you see with you even if it's in the past, beyond the window of sight: “Windrider”’s opening percussion never loses its threads, but its different facets pop in and out of the saturated mix as the song moves forward. Eventually, like the train coming to a halt, the song’s strings glisten at their loudest as the drums disappear, and the synthetic ‘ahhs’ bookend this sublime ride while the beauty of what you just experienced fully settles in.
TURQUOISEDEATH recognizes a crucial aspect of these journeys’ environments: there’s a constant undertone of love inside their scenery and artifacts. “I Love U” takes these threads and uses them as a muse to communicate the love for another person. Functioning like a living scrap book, the track samples some of their favorite love songs—from Dizzee Rascal to Everything But the Girl—to build an 8-minute homage to love in its purest, most fluid form. It’s a specific type of love to the artist themself, but being so blissfully open-ended, the song’s beaming sentiments mean something different, but just as powerfully intimate to each individual listener.
Inside “Soundsystem”’s submerging velocity are air pockets, little moments where just the right amount of space is allotted for us to breathe in, slow down, and internalize the beauty of what’s around us on the journey. They appear towards the middle of each of the first 3 tracks, but are all around the ever-dynamic conclusion “Like a Star” — functioning both as gates between the track’s sprawling sections, and as softer moments within the EP’s most abrasive experience. Everything we’ve experienced on this commute comes to a head here: loose threads of past songs—similar vocals to “Windrider” reappear, as well as the sample CD ‘go!’ chants heard on “I Love U”—come back in a hurricane of sound, the distortion and reverb combined creating a finale so sonically and thematically powerful. More “world of sound” than “wall of sound”, the experience ends up sounding just as Gabriel Good’s CG-animated cover appears: A blinding array of colors painted over objects so familiar, yet so otherworldly. Abrasive as the art and final track are, once you realize they simply painted the journey you just felt so peaceful on, you find comfort in this wild world — a world worth breathing in."
- Billie Bugara
Crédits
Released on Phosphilite Records
♥♥♥
Artwork by Gabriel Good
Mastered by Moa
Track 1 featuring bass playing from What is Your Name?