555 “Swan River Yogue” (Constellation Tatsu)

“With music strong I come. With my cornets and my drums. I play not marches for accepted victors only. I play marches for conquer’d and slain persons.” -Walt Whitman

This quote in the liner notes of “Swan River Yogue” sets the tone for the whole album.  At once melancholy and euphoric, 555 has brought us a delightfully immersive headphone masterpiece. Based on a performance given at Swan River Yoga in New Orleans (I can’t imagine a more apt setting for this music), the album is an ethereal journey.  I spent a week with this in my walkman- at work, commuting, meditating, and it has become a personal favorite. 

Starting with lush pads, rich echos and rumbling bass on the opening track “Twin Verses,” and segueing into reverse harps, subtle glitches and ethereal, swooping harmonies on “Heedfulness,” the album quickly hooks you.  “Flowers” alters the mood, with circling hornlike sounds that reminded me of temple horns in a Himalayan monestary, getting a bit darker and more intense before lifting you back up.  The fourth track, “Furls,” brings back energy with a clicking buzzy rhythmic pulse, before tapering off Side A with “The Wyze,” a longer droning track with circling flutes and overlapping harmonies.

Side B picks up just as strong with the first track “Evil.”  It’s high delayed eighth notes, warp core reactor thrumming in the low register and steady pace set you up for what I consider to be the best track on the album.  “Old Age” is my favorite track on here, it begins with light pads that make you feel like you’re descending through a cloud, low didgeridoo like drones and magical flute melodies settle on you like cool mist.  The penultimate track “Self” starts to settle you down, bring you home from the journey, it’s bubbling melody is like your inner voice speaking to you.  And this all leads us to “World,” the final track whose stuttering arpeggios and funky bassline resolve into a final rising unison of voices that clearly and satisfyingly end the album. 

Another thing I really enjoyed was that the artist included a list of the equipment used on the album in the liner notes.  As a gear junkie it really pleased me to know what all was used by the artist in the creation of the album.  I highly recommend this album and look forward to more output from 555.

https://ctatsu.bandcamp.com/

--Jeremiah Paddock

555 "Nine Gates" (Moon Glyph)

Shimmering synths and computer gloop-beats. Space jams. New-Age healing at the chilled-out dance party. Taking a computerized elevated train in the cartoon future. Odwalla commercial jammers, waiting for seating at the Rainforest Cafe. The computer is bored and calculating jammers for you.

Things were really upbeat, but now chilling out quite a bit. Good variety. Lots going on, but everything definitely fits together very nicely. Have I mentioned shimmering yet? Lots of computery shimmering, definitely a theme here. Sick percussion sounds. Electronic and computery.

This one is synth and just a kick drum sound giving the pulse. Plenty of googling and gurgling and, of course, shimmering. Speaking of Google, Google has just informed me that this is a member of Food Pyramid, which totally makes sense.

Here comes the hi-hat. It's now a rave vibe on an alien planet oasis. 80's soundtrack vibes. I want a keytar. This is somehow making me realize I need a keytar in my life. If I had an office job where I spent a lot of time at a computer, I would probably be jamming this SO hard. I think my favorite thing on a few of these jams is the synth bass. So truly phat. Sophisticated, yet still kind of sick. Everything feels very calculated and is where it should be, no matter how sparse or busy it gets, all the sounds gel very well and wherever it goes it transitions seamlessly.

Okay, This song should have been in "the Land Before Time", in the beginning, before the little dinosaurs got lost or whatever happened, when the kid dinos were playing and the adult dinosaurs were doing whatever they were doing. A lot of this makes me think of scenes like that. Desert, water, future, sunrise, alien landscapes. And here is more of that shimmering. Cartoon creatures are waking up to the sunrise and dancing like robots. They are some sort of bird creatures. Someone just dropped the hi-hat. Shit, this is not my kind of thing, but it could really grow on me. Someone hook this guy up with some soundtrack work. Total vibes. Total moods. Total mood vibes. I'm vibing. I'm in th' mood. Shit goes from upbeat to dreaming seamlessly. Sick. This whole thing is pretty solid. Electronic pulse beats. I want to go work-out at a really hip urban work-out place. This track is like part modern hair salon commercial and part Sonic the Hedgehog, and some future synth-rave scmoov-jazz in a tux. Yeah right there, Sonic just hit a patch of those rings. Synth studio wizardry vibes.

And here is the last song on side A. Total chill-down. Total palette cleanser. Wait here cross-legged and the Master will bring the Sacred Truth. Envision the universe. Be cleansed by All Things Unseen. It will soon be time for you to receive the Ultimate Truth. But first, just space out and put your third eye on the pulse of the universe. The somewhat shimmering universe. You are now floating through space. Feel the nothingness surround you. You do not know how fast you are traveling, all you feel is serene. Open your eyes. You see an alien desert landscape, a distant sunset, alien creatures (from either before or after time as you know it) sip from the lake of serenity. This is the end, until you flip it over.

http://moonglyph.com/releases/mg71

-- Garrison Heck