Al Lover

Cosmic Joke

Image of Al Lover - Cosmic Joke

About this item

A staple of the global psychedelic scene, Lover has spent nearly a decade fine-tuning a broken, abstracted form of electronica that pools together a tapestry of trip-hop, synthesised krautrock, dub and dark ambient. Utilising an arsenal of samples, drum machine, analogue synths and live instrumentation, Lover’s is a kaleidoscopic sound that’s J-Dilla, DJ Shadow and Lee Scratch Perry by way of Brian Eno, Kraftwerk and Kluster. Central to Lover’s music is a desire to explore the fringes of psychedelic music and the common threads that run through its far-reaching styles, drawing elements from the past and connecting them to the future.

Through the years he has released a number of studio albums and beat tapes, remixed the likes of Osees and Night Beats, been resident DJ for the Levitation and Desert Daze festivals and collaborated with the likes of Goat, Anton Newcombe, Cairo Liberation Front and White Fence. Now, Lover returns with his latest studio album, ‘Cosmic Joke’ – a series of synthesised philosophical meditations on modern life, in all its tragicomic absurdity. "'Cosmic Joke' came from observing the rising, compounded absurdity in recent years and seeing structures of normalcy dissolving. It’s my attempt to view these things as part of a higher-order process, through a metaphysical lens rather than an ideological one. It’s been an exercise in holding the paradoxical relationship of comedy and tragedy, joy and pain, growth and decay, scale and decline as part of an interlocked system that, at a deep level, is essential to how we interface with the world.”

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Stereoscopic View (5:39)
2. Parallel Pathways (2:46)
3. Cosmic Joke (4:12)
4. Ultimate Reality (Question) (1:50)
5. Infinite Impermanence (2:33)
6. Order From Chaos (4:26)
Side 2
1. Integrated Paradox (2:41)
2. Deep Time/Complex System (4:03)
3. A Very Mechanized Dance (3:07)
4. Experiential Feedback Loop (1:50)
5. Corresponding Contradiction (3:51)
6. Reverberative Relationship (2:56)
7. Linear Return Cycle (3:32)

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