
Blurring the boundaries between rock, electronica, and breakbeat-driven club music, the album is a genre-blend of shoegaze's vast soundscapes, the kinetic energy of drum'n'bass and the hard-hitting detail of hyperpop. "When we met, we both needed to approach music-making from a fresh perspective. We'd been exploring electronic production styles, and this album became our mutual attempt to create drum'n'gaze - a term Casper had coined to describe the missing fusion of shoegaze and drum and bass." say Casper and Jakob.
The album is an exploration of contrasts - melancholy wrapped in euphoria, introspection communicated as explosion. Sonically, the band has worked with negative space in a loud-quiet-loud sense, mirrored thematically and emotionally: The album deals with stark contrasts. On hypergaze single Ether they describe the juxtaposed feelings of being in an altered state of mind - the perception of momentary bliss, while also experiencing everything at a dissociate remove. It is bitter-sweetness experienced in high contrast; golden euphoria tinged with an absolute monochromatic melancholy.
Elsewhere, on Over Me, the duo mix a deep longing for life itself with utter heartbreak, both outerpoints sounding like they're soaring above the clouds, anchored by a roar of a chorus and deep subs. Whether on ballads or bangers, so to speak, the album is cohesive but utterly fresh-sounding.
STAFF COMMENTS
Liam says: Mega, mega, MEGA!! Spaced out shoegaze meets DnB. Sounds like it shouldn't work but it totally does. Channelling the bagginess of Chapterhouse's 'Pearl' but with a more polished sheen at points, then elsewhere there's moments of utter shoegaze pop perfection - massively impressed!TRACK LISTING
Side A
1.Lost Myself
2.Ether
3.Looking In From The Outside
4.Re-Emerging
Side B
5.Over Me
6.Two Packs Of Red Apples
7.Leave It
8.Carat
9.Warmblooded