Have you ever fallen asleep in public? Sounds of a Dying System feels a bit like that. The world around you experienced through the filter of a dreaming subconscious, but it took me a moment to understand that's what was going on.
When the album starts, Reform in The New Era's ambience and shambolic vocal delivery left me feeling kind of perplexed. The ambience was fine, but the vocals felt meandering and atonal, almost like someone had recorded Jusmix mumbling to themselves in their sleep. I could sense something was working, but I couldn't quite work out what.
Things became a bit more clear with the second track, Beautiful as It Was. A static hiss undercuts a spacy electric piano, which twinkles and skitters as much as it booms and hums. The kind of thing one dreams of watching on an oscilloscope, hypnotised by the shifting shapes and patterns. It really is quite beautiful.
So far, so ambient, but that takes a turn as That Night You Sung kicks off. Big synth stabs are met with a sick Matrix-era breakbeat that cuts and chops around the every bending synth loops and it's wicked. Things never quite bop as hard as that again, but it does enough to make me check my expectations with the rest of the album. It opens the door to make it easier to appreciate the subtle soul flourishes on Along The Front Days and the jazzy tones of 99 Studies & I Still Didn't Know, which sounds like a cross between Quincy Jones and Daniel Lopatin and is one of my favourites here.
It all comes together with the finale, Across The Street I Met You. Thank You For The Messages & Memories, which is where that feeling of falling asleep in public is most prevalent. Saxophones play in the distance, waves of sound wash over you, and eventually even an acoustic guitar joins in and flirts with the idea of being an indie rock song before melting into the rest of the ambience again. It's a cool moment, and really makes you feel like you just experienced something special, and now I wanna go to bed.
