23 Jun 2011 — Henning Lahmann
Two lovers on a beach, walking along the waterside. Side by side, hand in hand - a romantic scene, obviously, yet still one visually held in rather dark and gloomy colors, and the slow drones and eerie vocals of the piece accompanying the visuals at least could hint at some twisted edges in the picture. What we see here is a audiovisual study about the fundamentals of love:
Synastry, we're being told,
"is the branch of astrology that studies relationships by comparing natal horoscopes".
The song appears on
Motion Sickness of Time Travel's new full-length
Luminaries & Synastry, out today via Tulsa, Oklahoma imprint
Digitalis. Despite a pretty impressive
discography (alone and with her husband Grant as
Quiet Evenings, who recently dropped their first LP
Intrepid Trips via their own label
Hooker Vision), Rachel Evans' new album is the official follow-up to her very impressive debut
Seeping Through the Veil of the Unconscious, originally put out by Digitalis on tape last year but treated with a vinyl re-release
earlier this year.
Although
Seeping... already was a fabulous effort,
Luminaries & Synastry nonetheless marks a big artistic leap ahead for the LaGrange, Georgia-based artist. In general, the songs are notably shorter on the new album, and all in all there is a noticeable step towards more accessibility, the tracks are mostly based on clearer, more firm structures - most decisively on the album's strongest and most beautiful track
Day Glow, a song that puts Evans in line with other outstanding female experimental pop artists such as Grimes or Grouper - though this doesn't mean that we're confronted with a straight pop album here whatsoever. To the contrary, the LP is a very distinctly experimental ambient/drone piece, reconfirming Rachel Evans' extraordinary talent in both songwriting and soundscaping, and all in all one of the best albums of the year so far.
Luminaries & Synastry is available now directly via
Digitalis or (recommended if you're in Europe) via
Boomkat.
Motion Sickness of Time Travel - Synastry
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Totally psyched-out after listening to this "cloudsurf/krauthop" tune by Austin, Texas outfit Field Dress. This is rather experimental and kinda dark but also strangely catchy in all its noisy lo-fi demeanor, a combination that will always convince the folks over here at the NFOP offices, even on a Friday night when they should be out having some lush times in this big old city. Spiral Arms is the first single off the forthcoming debut full-length Holy Field which will be dropped August 3 "through the usual outlets", which we guess means bandcamp, and probably somewhere else though (so far) there's no label whatsoever.
Field Dress - Spiral Arms
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