Chris Forsyth and Koen Holtkamp have banded together to create the follow-up to 2012’s Early Astral, and one can only imagine how intense the recording session for this disc must’ve been. Titled The Island, the four-track album boasts dreamy, subdued instrumental work that somehow feels like the aftershock of a two-day studio tsunami: priceless musical instruments shattered over mixing boards in a fit of rage; drunk hangers-on playing with their Euroracks in the hallways; bathtubs full of “psychedelic fruit” and circus performers. Just check out this account of the debauchery: “Rehearsals for the sessions amounted to spending a couple days drinking wine, cooking, and hanging out on the beach at the Jersey Shore, and the rhythm and motion of the water seems to have had an undeniable effect on the session’s results.”
And we all know Forsyth is a certified rock star, with an appetite for destruction and albums of slow, attentive guitar-work — and, let’s not forget, righteously spacey collaborations with Koen Holtkamp. They’re exactly the kind of guys to throw a middle finger to life as industry pawns, strike out on their own, and rescue experimental music from its preoccupation with the nature of time or dying and being born in the same instance, or something. Both artists approach studio work with different perspectives, though: Forsyth with his guitar as a tool that can be captured and manipulated, Holtkamp using the space to elaborate on live electroacoustic work that emphasizes slow, methodical layering. I’m surprised both of them made it out of the astral plane alive.
The Island is out October 16 on Trouble in Mind Records. Check out the first single, “Long Beach Idyll.” It’s a blissful, slow-burning song and a big step away from Early Astral. Maybe this new LP signifies Forsyth and Holtkamp leaving their hard-partying rock star days behind them, but I doubt it.
The Island tracklist:
01. Sun Blind
02. Long Beach Idyll
03. Alternator
04. Cosmic Richard
[Photo: Ryan Collerd]
• Trouble in Mind: http://www.troubleinmindrecs.com