Lei Line Eon (studio album) by Iglooghost

Not heard anything like this in a while. Really eclectic sound. Not easy to listen to at all but at least they've got original ideas going for them

From Mercury 04/09/2021 21:13

(Really unique, insanely creative, album by Iglooghost here. Has opened my eyes to some other new avenues of music listening going forward. I really liked it, and the only thing keeping me from loving it was feeling like the pay offs and peaks weren’t reached very often and the album’s flow was a bit unchanging - if gorgeous.)

I’ve been putting off writing my comment on this album. Wanted to give it another listen. Then once I’d done that I wanted another and another. And that wasn’t really because I absolutely adore the album, but because I hadn’t really been able to put my finger on what I had heard. I’m not familiar with Progressive Electronic, Wonky, UK Bass, Deconstructed House, etc - really I don’t have any context on any genre this is labeled as.

I suppose the closest this comes to from my catalogue in my little mind is Flying Lotus. But it’s not a great fit. This is very unique. There is clearly a DEEP well of imagination and talent this artist has. They seem to be able to create intricate, crisp, alien yet soulful beats and tracks with ease (obviously it’s not easy, but he seems to have such a profound talent for such that it comes across as just a natural extension of his soul. Or something. Whatever).

On the whole, the album is strikingly vibrant, loud yet not in a ridiculous way, but all the electronic sounds pop and the vocals, when they appear, come in hard and there are some really interesting climaxes that the artist takes his time to get to. After my listens I can’t say this is a true mind-blowing, game-changing album for me, and I think that the flow of the album is almost too methodical and restrained and slow building and, despite being a brilliantly unique sound, somewhat same-y. It’s not at all monotonous but based off how wild the individual parts are, the last thing in the world I thought I’d take away from this album is that it’s, idk, somewhat un-dynamic. Yet, I did feel at the end of each listen like there was something left on the table and that the peaks that are consistently hinted at are very rarely hit.

Of course, those are the reasons I don’t personally feel this is a GREAT album. I do absolutely think it’s a good album, a damn fine one even. And it may be that my relatively lukewarm appreciation for it is due to how alien some of the sounds and certainly this combination of sounds is to my usual listening. I do think it’s opened up a few avenues of musical exploration that I didn’t know existed last week. And I look forward to checking out the Iglooghost debut as well as other similar stuff soon.