The opening track, Colossal Silence, begins with a slow fade in on a low, electronic hum akin to the background ambience on board a space station of some kind. It’s as though we’ve awakened from stasis to embark on a weird and wonderful interstellar expedition, a mental image bolstered by the curious mixture of vividly crystalline and liltingly liquid sounds that filter in gradually to form the ethereal main melody. As a whole, the piece is evocative of waking from a fantastical dream to find yourself in an equally mesmerising location, so you can’t quite be sure what’s real.
As we segue into track two, Moon Landing, the music initially takes on a warmer tone as voice samples from 1969’s Apollo 11 mission surface into the mix. But the mysterious vibe from earlier returns as the piece becomes chillier and more distant, ultimately taking on a somewhat urgent edge. The effect of this is to make us feel rather removed from the momentous event we’re hearing, as though we’ve travelled in time to witness a key point in history, but we can only remain in the past for a limited period. Indeed, it suggests we may be travellers from somewhere else altogether, merely curious to get a glimpse of mankind’s accomplishments and keen to avoid being observed ourselves.
This sense of otherworldliness pervades the album’s third and longest track, Fracture, which draws us away from bygone days and takes us on a spine-tinglingly thrilling trip into the unknown. An eerie blend of dark electronica and echoing strings opens the piece, conjuring up thoughts of floating away into the inky depths of the universe, and these sounds continually drift in and out as a driving synth line takes the lead, creating the impression that we’re heading into uncharted realms of existence, with twinkling nebulae and bizarre new worlds passing by as we delve deeper and deeper into the blackness.
Everything culminates in suitably esoteric style with the fourth and final track, Austistic Love, as our voyage brings us to an intriguingly ambiguous final destination. Resonant synths are accompanied by the return of distinctly liquid sounds, this time redolent of rain cascading from rooftops, alongside what seem to be the far-flung voices of children at play; a sound which, as a wise man once said, can be quite restful provided you can’t hear what the children are actually saying. Have we arrived in some oddly familiar new dimension, or have we ended up back in the past of our childhood? At once faintly chilling and brightly hopeful, the multi-layered music leaves things very much open to interpretation.
All in all, Fractures is an impressively emotive and deftly imaginative album that offers a most beguiling journey for your mind, and will leave you in quietly reflective mood after its final notes have faded away.
Matthew Smith
Producer of Amiga Power: The Album With Attitude