It's interesting the way the format an album is released in dictates, to some extent, the music that appears on there. Singles tend to be around 3 to 5 minutes because that's what could fit on a 45. Albums are about 35 to 50 minutes because that's what can fit on two sides of a 12 inch vinyl record. That dividing line between side A and side B is why I bring this up. UNKNOWN SIGNALS is available on cassette, another format with a side A and side B, and it feels like an album that was put together with that split in mind.
As I spun the album, my first impressions were that this is some pretty nice synthwave complete with slow, thumping beats and squishy squelchy synths, and it does all the things that good synthwave does. It evokes that unique feeling of a warm and solitary summer night somewhere between the past and the future, possibly driving along in an AUDI QUATTRO as the opener's title suggests.
If that's all the album was, I would have been fine with that, and for a while that's what I believed I was hearing. The sound of a car speeding off in MOVEMENT continues the feeling established in the first track, and it's a decent time.
But there's a point where things start to shift.
It's teased in MIDNIGHT CLUB, which is still that late night retro-futuristic sound that's been prevalent throughout, but there's this sense of discord permeating through it. The modulating percussion and the way the synths harmonise (or don't) builds an uneasy feeling that is so subtle it's tempting to ignore it. I am assuming that this is the end of side A.
We flip over the tape.
Side B represents something almost entirely different. That prettiness, that sense of melancholy peace, is rudely interrupted by END OF TRANSMISSION's loud and rhythmic screech. This is doubled down in WIRE PARALYSIS, where the previous track's mournful synths are replaced by an unsettling electric buzz. I don't know where my Audi is now, but it's certainly not on the road anymore. The signal has been lost. Am I even on Earth anymore?
By the time we get to the closing track, UNKNOWN SIGNALS, there's a real sense of menace as bass synths boom and hum around metallic tubes, before eventually exploding in triumph catharsis. Had this track appeared at the end of the first side, I probably wouldn't have thought much of it, but the journey here recontextualises it in a way that fundamentally alters its meaning.
This is an album that really appreciates the format it was delivered in. Both as an album that takes you on a journey, but also as an album that considers the format it comes in. When listening to it on Bandcamp, without that clean break, that journey persists precisely because of how it was put together. It's excellent.