I've always wondered what it's like to be a modular synth person, poking away at a unit that looks like a mess of cables, twiddling knobs, plugging stuff in while pulling other plugs out. While listening to Timewarp I wondered this, I wondered how much of this album was meticulously composed versus improvised and seeing what happens when you do this or that. It occurred to me while listening to Undo Artificial, a pretty minimal electronic track that probably spends more time with dissonant modulation than it does with any kind of harmony, while still sounding "correct" for the music.
At the same time, for an opening track I couldn't help but wonder where it was supposed to be taking me. Its simple drum beats and repeating call-and-response bass line and synth riff, its lack of direction perhaps making more sense if this is more of a jam than a composition, but I'm just not really sure.
Fortunately, things pick up a bit with the second track, Night Rain. Its beat is a little faster and synth licks easier to grab hold of. It's still minimal, but you can hear the different ideas evolve as sounds layer up and warp over time in a way that's pretty satisfying and I enjoyed it a fair bit more than Undo Artificial.
Still, I can't help but feel there's something a little cold here. That is until Phosphorescent, track four. It brings the tempo down and gives us big lovely synth pads and a melody and there's a sense of emotion here that I can't help but feel was lacking. It's really nice, and I think in general the album improves significantly from here on.
Thich is another example, but in the opposite direction. Where Phosphorescent brought beauty into the equation, Thich gives us big aggressive drums and acid-flavoured synth arpeggiation. This track, along with Continuum before it, features drums from an artist called Nomadic, and I think you can tell. The drums have considerably more going on for them and they elevate what was already one of the strongest tracks here.
Another stand out for me is Like it Was, with its rigid and distorted bass synth and menacing synths. There's something so nasty about this track and it makes for such a cool, itchy listen.
Things wrap up with Nature and Night Tripper. The former is a nice counter to Like it Was. It's poppier, with pretty arpeggios and even a nice trumpet part (synthesised, obviously). Night Tripper is slow and gloomy and feels like a real journey, and is a great way to close the album.
I came into this album not sure how I was going to feel about it, and worse, not knowing what I was going to say about it. I do think the album doesn't put its best foot forward and I struggled to really feel anything when listening to the first few pieces, but I'm glad I stuck around because by the end I was enjoying it a fair bit.