Tidal Memory Exo

This album has been added to 2 public lists:

• 

  Vortex's Album of the Year List '24

  Tom

  Vortex, 06/08/2024, 18:48: I have never liked an album like this before

  A dystopian English seaside town, isolated from the world by a mysterious storm. Tiny "angels" from a civilisation made before time washing up on the shore, their use or intentions unknown. An underground scene hyperlocalised by necessity, with rickety radio stations and forums devoted to fostering the culture that's formed to envelop this new life.

  This is the scene Tidal Memory Exo sets itself; Iglooghost producing music in a strange new environment where genres like "Foamtek" and "Tektonicore" spread like wildfire and prehistoric creatures, "Memrees", maul seagulls and poison the sea. From his forum posts on exoportal.xyz, though, it doesn't seem like his music is having much success...

  If you couldn't tell already, I'm infatuated with this album and the world it's created. From the moment Blue Hum begins you can just tell you're in for a treat; heavy fuzzed kicks that spray the salty vocals straight into your brain, cracking and fraying like wet sand on concrete. Like Sega Bodega on Dennis, Iglooghost uses his voice as much more of a tool rather than an instrument; he's spoken about how he strings the vocals through several layers of heavy crush and overproduction, and it shows. There's a bite to every vocal inflection that frays against the foamy bass and ugly, crusted sound design. Take Coral Mimic. That track has no one element that rises above the others, but like a wave, you combine it all and it bears down upon you, towering in its immensity. Or Spawn01, with its wet loneliness and ethereal vocals. I have so many memories where I have felt exactly like this music sounds; at a grey beach in my battered, ancient car, being whipped by storm wind and rain, entirely alone and feeling so, so small. That's Tidal Memory Exo; not entirely detached (there's hints of drill in flux.Cocoon and Dew Signal, for example) but so close to it; the euphoria of knowing you are nothing.

  If I had to choose just one song to highlight, it'd be Echo Lace; its rusted and corroded hollowness is so fucking intense and powerful, combined with a perfect understanding of how powerful abrasion can be in a track. I've cried to this track, not because it's emotional but because it somehow encapsulates feelings I've had for a long time.

  But really you can't listen to just one song from Exo. It works best as a whole, a salty, dystopian whole. Geo Sprite Exo, the closer, is splicing taken to the max; everything halved and pushed together in a thrilling, heady mess of pollution and algae. There's the best use of vocal layering I have ever seen here, too, the kind of blistering perfection that makes your eyes water and your hairs stand on end. Seriously; I'd happily switch this with the #1 album on this list any day of the week.

  I have never liked an album like this before. A fucking masterpiece even without its lore, the kind of world that makes you ache to extend its world in your mind, if not in writing. Iglooghost deserves everything and more.

• 

  2024

  nyxsec