spaceseer – Colossi Perpetual Factory (2022)

Photo credit: レコードとプレーヤーのイメージイラスト（記録媒体) by kintomo https://stock.adobe.com/au/ standard licence

Link to album: https://spaceseer.bandcamp.com/album/colossi-perpetual-factory

YT link to album: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1zwWfM_an-Mi-ROoK4q0NkanycFWHG5f

Genre: Electronic, avant-garde, industrial

Sample track:

Having been a fan of spaceseer’s work in the past and thus deeply interested in hearing more of their music, I was greatly interested to receive news that they recently released an EP. Being a bit out of the loop of late, I actually have quite a few releases to catch up on from this band.

Colossi Perpetual Factory is made up of three songs that hit near or around the eight minute mark. This record builds on spaceseer’s intriguing collection of electronic and avant-garde soundscapes that appear to trend towards space and science fiction themes. I have always found spaceseer’s work to be very textural. To use a turn of phrase borrowed from composer and music critic Peggy Glanville-Hicks, their music ‘displaces’ the silent air with an alchemy of fragmented feelings and snatches of passing imagery. Beats, rhythm and electronic keys work tightly to construct soundscapes that tend to sound alien and disconcerting while also remaining highly habitable places for the listener to reside within. It is not a jarring or unpleasant place to be. For example, though synths lend a mystical and foreign air to the environment, the rhythmic, tinny and industrial leaning sounds of “Perpetual Factory” are familiar and known, comforting the listener even if the world created feels slightly on edge.

At times, ambient material can feel rather ethereal and untethered. Perhaps due to the backstory often provided in the liner notes that accompany their releases, I feel spaceseer’s work frequently has a connection to something grounded within a narrative. I hear their work within the context of what has been provided creatively by the band and this in turn gives their releases a sense of weightiness as they bind their music to an imagined history. In this sense, in creative terms, they remind me a bit of Heilung. In my opinion, spaceseer are effective at combining these two elements to make their work multidimensional. It gives the enormous, expansive and compelling sound of tracks such as “Treasury of Kahryatt” an emotional density particularly when it is heard in context of the story of a slaughtered race, their worship of another being and the tracing of memory and cultural knowledge especially in the face of annihilation.

Highly ambient, electronic music provides many things to many listeners and over time one of the things I have realised is that what keeps me drawn to spaceseer’s work is how they use music to create stories. Being an avid reader with a passion for science fiction and a good yarn, I am always willing to plunge into the worlds they offer. I am surprised that as of yet spaceseer haven’t produced work that feels repetitive or done before given they are employing with each release similar ideas and mechanisms to convey feeling and emotion. Creatively, each release has felt absorbing. They remain an exciting band to follow and I look forward to hearing more from them.