- Dense sci-fi club music that references drill, coldwave, UK garage and more.
- In the late '00s, a bizarre piece of audio was passed around schools up and down the UK. An early example of unintentional ASMR, The Virtual Barber Shop actually dates back to 1996 and simulates a haircut through a nifty application of binaural audio. 28 years later, the sound of fast-approaching clippers can still command neck hairs to stand to attention. There's a similar uncanny satisfaction to the music of Irish producer Iglooghost, whose hyper-detailed output has a lot in common with the sounds of glitch-hop, drill & bass and trap—but with a fervid devotion to world-building that makes him stand apart from his contemporaries.
Following previous albums documenting the mythical world of Mamu and a lost musical tradition native to Dorset, Tidal Memory Exo explores the waterlogged landscape of a contemporary coastal UK town covered in primordial rubbish. Swapping out the Drukqs-adjacent computer-meets-classical sound of 2021's Lei Line Eon, Iglooghost's third solo LP splays UK garage, coldwave and drill across an eclectic collection of catchy vocal tracks that fall into one another like overlapping waves. The self-aware introduction "Blue Hum" blends shore-lapping tidal ambience with sugary vocal hits, fizzy synth zaps and a robotic voiceover that queues up the proceeding 12 tracks. From there, Tidal Memory Exo tumbles on with the singular momentum of all great concept albums, tied together by cinematic interludes that mimic a rusty aerial tuning from one frequency to another on a waterlogged radio.
Iglooghost's breathy, blown-out vocals slot seamlessly into the music, with lyrical content as abstract as the fictional flooded town the record is set in. On boisterous trap-meets-IDM excursion "Germ Chrism," he snarls two repeating hooks as the track swells in scale and intensity: "See you coughing up the dust in a white light / Blinded by the grain in the eyesight." These words could've been lost amidst the barrage of percussion and maximalist bass whomps, but their fine-tuned clarity only sharpens the track's bite. His vocal prowess is at its most seductive on slow jam "Spawn01," the record's high point. A sensual and swaggering slice of trip-hop that evokes the mournful yearning of early Portishead, credited artist Cyst (a new collaborative project with frequent partner BABii) croons with the hushed fragility of whispered pillow talk.
There are so many whacked-out ideas, textures and rhythms stuffed into every nook and cranny of Tidal Memory Exo's 43-minute runtime, it's remarkable the record retains its thematic thrust with such conviction. This is a dense, longform piece of near-future sci-fi that clothes abstract storytelling in visceral, goosebump-inducing club music.
Tracklist01. Blue Hum
02. New Species
03. Alloy Flea
04. Coral Mimic
05. Spawn01 feat. Cyst
06. flux•Cocoon
07. Pulse Angel
08. Echo Lace
09. Nemat0de
10. Chlorine•FM (Intermission)
11. Germ Chrism
12. Dew Signal
13. Geo Sprite Exo