Heathered Pearls “Body Complex” [ARTPL-067]

Artist: Heathered Pearls
Title: Body Complex
Cat#: ARTPL-067
Format: CD / Digital

※ボーナス・トラック収録
※正方形紙ジャケット仕様
※解説付き

Release Date: August 12, 2015
Price(CD): 2,000yen + tax

TYCHOの側近、Jakub Alexanderによるソロ・プロジェクト、Heathered Pearlsのニュー・アルバム。The Sight Below、Shigeto、Outerbridgeらが参加！TYCHOファンも必聴のアンビエント・テクノの傑作！

Heathered Pearlsはポーランド出身で、デトロイト郊外で育ち、現在はブルックリンを拠点に活動しているJakub Alexanderによるプロジェクトである。彼はShigetoやNitemovesも輩出した優良デジタル・レーベル Moodgadgetの運営者のひとりであり、Ghostly InternationalのA&Rとしても活動している他、TYCHOことScott Hansenのブログ、ISO50のキュレイターであり、かつてはTYCHOのマネージャーもつとめていた、現代エレクトロニック・ミュージック・シーン のキーマンである。

Gasや初期Dial Records、2000年代のMille Plateauxのリリースなどがルーツであり、!K7のクラシックであるオーディオヴィジュアル・ミックス・シリーズ、X-Mixそしてearly- aughtsテクノ・コンピレーションにインスパイアされたという彼。本作『Body Complex』はアルバムとしては2012年の『Loyal』以来となるセカ ンド作。流麗かつディープなアンビエント・テクノ・サウンドを披露。ミニマルにビルドアップしていくビートとエレクトニックなテクスチャー、ほのか に漂うアブストラクト・メロディと浮遊感んが絶妙なバランスで相俟って展開していく。

ミックス／マスタリングも手掛けたThe Sight Belowがフィーチャーされた「Personal Kiosk」ではシューゲイズ的なドリーミーな展開をみせ、盟友Shigetoがフィーチャーされた「Abandoned Mall Utopia」ではパーカシヴ且つドープなミニマルを、Beaconの女性シンガー、Outerbridge (a.k.a. Thomas Mullarney III)をフィーチャーした「Warm Air Estate」では、彼女の幽玄なヴォーカルを漂わせ、アトモスフェリックに疾走していく展開をみせるなど、ゲスト参加した面々が良きアクセントとなっており、ヴァリエーション豊かな作品に仕上がっている。また、アートワークはJakub本人が手掛けている。

For Jakub Alexander, the languages of music and visual art are permanently intertwined. And he’s always been this way—from his birthplace in communist Poland, to growing up outside of Detroit, to his current home in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. “When music like Gas, early Dial Records, and Mille Plateaux releases in the 2000s popped up in my headphones,” Alexander begins, “it was completely visual for me. Something clicked from collecting pages out of old Architectural Digest magazines and being completely overwhelmed with inspiration for my own visions of interior architecture.” The concept carries on still, now as an integral part of Body Complex, his second album as Heathered Pearls. Body Complex represents a new form of Alexander’s visually inspired sound creation, but just as it points to changes in direction for the ambient-inclined producer, it also revisits the past experiences that make his music possible.

Perhaps the most important era referenced in Body Complex is Alexander’s mid-teens, when he was a 15-year-old DJ going to raves with the older kids. Sure, the parties themselves were influential, but it’s the afterhours that resonate the strongest on Body Complex. “I remember those mornings better than the holidays during those years, the drives home from Detroit at 7AM were always stimulating. Everyone was so content, we’d usually listen to something deep and easy on the ears. This was a perfect time to let your mind wander.” It was also an opportunity for him to discover the likes of Terrence Dixon and Lawrence, artists who would eventually offer encouragement to Heathered Pearls as he moved into a new beat-centric sound. “I respect [Terrence Dixon and Lawrence] because they can ride the same thin lines of what I love: electronic music that is heavily repetitive, melodic, and deep. They both can find this elegance in techno beyond the dark warehouse.”

Body Complex doesn’t necessarily aspire to recreate the music of Alexander’s youth. But while taking inspiration from !K7’s classic audio-visual mix series, X-Mix, and early-aughts techno compilations, Heathered Pearls has moved himself closer to the dancefloor. “Loyal was these indirect, huge, heavy, slow ocean waves off in the distance at night,” he says of his beatless debut album, “and Body Complex is a stunningly bleak, uncharted landscape of man-made cement and artificial foliage.” Take a track like the desaturated “Sunken Living Area”, where flickering synths and chrome-plated drum patterns sketch out Alexander’s conceptual backdrop. You can almost envision the sounds as columns and plateaus protruding from a dusk-lit valley. “Personal Kiosk”, an exuberant ambient-techno highlight with The Sight Below (who also mixed and mastered Body Complex), might best represent everything Heathered Pearls brings to his second album: whorls of deep texture, abstract melodic drifts, elegiac beauty, and illusory dance music.

Of course, the artwork is another integral aspect of Body Complex, especially as it was conceived around an object designed by Alexander. “The shape came from wanting to create an imperfect sculpture that, from a distance, looks like a display piece,” he shares, “but when you get closer and you have more time with it, you see its flaws.” And that sort of ever-changing perspective reflects how the album itself can be heard differently in various contexts. Put on the Shigeto-featuring “Abandoned Mall Utopia” at home, and it’s a softly pulsing current of astral dust; put it on in a DJ set, and the music becomes a heady balm for the dancefloor. “You’re given this body and mind to build on, and everyone has their imperfections they don’t love,” Heathered Pearls explains in regards to the double meaning of his album title. Indeed, Body Complex is an elaborate expression of personal memories and visual metaphors as nuanced electronic music, and just like any fully realized body of work, it’s best understood from more than one vantage point.

TRACKLISTING:

01. Cast in Lemon & Sand
02. Sunken Living Area
03. Interior Architecture Software
04. Personal Kiosk (ft. The Sight Below)
05. Holographic Lodge
06. Abandoned Mall Utopia (ft. Shigeto)
07. Perfume Catalogue
08. Artificial Foliage
09. Warm Air Estate (ft. Outerbridge)
10. Thought Palace
11. Cast in Lemon & Sand (ft. Outerbridge) (Bonus Track)

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