The drums are dashing forward as the bassline pulls everything in the master mix back, but as the different channels within “The Dark Forest” are pulled in every direction, Elektragaaz’s melodic war starts to sound rather harmonious and justifiably filled with rage.
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In the new record The Synaesthetic Picture Show: Part 6, Elektragaaz take a look at finishing the sixth installment in a series of quite intriguing extended plays, and taking just one look at songs like “The Dark Forest,” “American Humoresque,” “Death and the Gunfighter,” or “Sunset Wheels” will demonstrate how far they were willing to go to make theirs a complete narrative. The gods of noise are summoned immediately in the opening cut “Death and the Gunfighter” as though their presence in this record was more than necessary, and when the synths swell and the strings clash with their searing melodic output, it’s hard for even the most discriminating of listeners to pull away from their speakers. The Synaesthetic Picture Show: Part 6 has a lot of moxie for being an ultra-dark, progressive electronica-style offering, and if you’re a fan of concept revivals, it might just be the best record out this season.
“The Forge of the Red Horseman” blends electropunk and industrial rock in a sexy fashion, putting more stock in the grinding of the backdrop pulse than it does a robotic or rigid groove, and much like the smothering “New Boots – A Holiday Song,” it doesn’t extinguish tonal sharpness just for the sake of making a melody more accessible. Honestly, preserving melodic integrity never seems like a priority for this crew in songs like “Sunset Wheels” and “The Dark Forest,” but I don’t see why this has to be a bad thing at all (especially given the emotional subtext it produces in the lack of lyrics here). The bold “American Humoresque” has a richness to its sound that would have been absent were it varnished with a lot of studio bells and whistles, and the same could be said of “Lucio the Happy Octopus” as well. Some EPs cannot stand the glisten of polish, and in this instance, The Synaesthetic Picture Show: Part 6 likely wouldn’t be the juggernaut it is were it given anything other than a rough and tumble DIY finish.
If big beats are your thing, the rather potent “The Forge of the Red Horseman” might be more your speed than the meditative remainder of the tracklist is, but the best thing about this highly experimental piece from Elektragaaz is that we aren’t working with one recurring tempo from one song to the next. There’s plenty of droning inserted in this tracklist for good measure, but the psychologically provocative structure of the most powerful songs here tends to center more on volatility in the rhythm rather than a stoic groove.
After repeat listens, I’ve found that there is something for every discriminating ambient fan’s taste in The Synaesthetic Picture Show: Part 6, and if you haven’t already spent an evening alone in the dark with its tracklist, you have no idea what you’ve been missing.
Rachel Townsend