Access To Arasaka - Geosynchron

Not too far from where I live, there is a bridge upon which I like to take in the views on the odd early morning. On this particular one, an immense bank of fog blanketed everything from my vantage point completely. The viable visibility was the shade of this album's cover. Almost blindingly white with the sinister evergreen darkness of the water below providing the only contrast. I noticed what we all do when confronted by such conditions: minute quivers of particulate matter moving across my corneal range. In exactly the same way this terrarium has been cast, so does the new record from Access To Arasaka almost push you back through sheer sensory overload and like those molecules of debris in your eye, the flits of melody and rhythm dance to a pattern you are only witness to while the exotic conditions of a near white out are occurring. I have had "Geosynchron" for several weeks now and each night I've been playing it, studying it's habits and noting the instinctual proclivities it operates through.

To stand at the very edge of what you can discern. Recognized landmarks and distant lights hazily peering through the impenetrable, infinite void. I walked back to my apartment and began writing these images down while once again playing through the sumptuous repast that is "Geosynchron" and still did not feel completely safe in doing so. For you see, there is a deeply disturbing tone which makes it's way through this release like a diabolical phantasm come to the door of your subconscious with it's cloying, clawing nails. Access to Arasaka have now given us the aftermath in the trilogy of releases put out in 2011. There was first the staggeringly refined EP "Orbitus", then came the bittersweet treat of "Aleph" with it's deliciously tragic atmospheres and now we're shown out into the bone chilling cold of "Geosynchron". I can view it no other way, this is disappointment personified.

When you strive for the unattainable, even though you know it is an unrealistic expectation there is still a small part of you which hopes. After all, isn't hope all we have? But now, with his newest work, Access To Arasaka remind us once more that the impossible is always, ALWAYS, going to be precisely that. Perceptions are easily disoriented, none more so than by what I have heard here, I don't know which way is up or down anymore because the immersion is absolutely devastating. In the lexicon of musical stylings, Access To Arasaka have had plenty of words and phrasings tossed their way. "Geosynchron" is a complex cohesion of coercion. No one demands that you listen to this, no one forces your hand to press play. This is a magnificent symphony of alienated abandonment that you'll put on happily and then become a willing victim. Once you begin listening, there is nothing else around you, the whims and petty debates of the day fade into the distance becoming nothing more than pitiful wisps of temporal ephemera.

It would be easy to misunderstand the compositions that comprise this album, you could chalk it all up to software wankery run amok. But unlike the accusations leveled at Autechre, this act here have composed honest to god songs, even if a lot of people out there like to say otherwise. The gritty mechanics of Access to Arasaka are truly second to none and mind your way here, one of the songs even has vocals on it. "Are you ready to be alone?" "Lysithea" asks... oh yes, yes I am. I have been for years, even on the busiest streets and crowded intersections this has been the case. More and more, John Foxx's ongoing serial, "The Quiet Man" permeates the musical landscape as we shut ourselves in and cut ourselves off from others. "Geosynchron" is an addition to this worthy canon, even though the words are few, the brooding meditative complexity is a kindred spirit. Be aware of your surroundings, everyone, Rob Lioy's project has the reputation it does for very good reason: his music will map out every last synapse and neural connection you have through the remote means of insightful, incisively crisp creativity. A digital nadir this most definitely is. Jan 09 2012