Review Summary: signal : calcite : drifter : ripple
It’s probably the goofed-up way the human brain processes information - expectation fuelling reality etc. - but god
damn I am a sucker for dope album art. Good packaging’s ability to inform and enrich the experience provided by the music contained within is, itself, good. As a post-it note of thematic intent, it facilitates storytelling through a discog, as well as demarcation against others within the scene/genre: this is what I am; this is what I’m not.
In this respect,
Igloo has been exemplary. That endearing globular-chrome wizard emblem
is Seamus, refracting the mirror glaze plus chocolate sprinkles that constitute his chaotic, ADHD-inducing sound. Likewise, when the formula has shifted elsewhere, deviating from the Wonky/Glitchy lane of UK Bass that this spooky boi is known for, his album art has adapted accordingly - see, for example, the minimalist-adjacent snoozebient of 2016’s
Snoring, portrayed with a visage of dozy cuteness, as well as the Ying-Yang dichotomy of
Steel Mogu and
Clear Tamei. As you’d expect, then, the nautical/industrial surrealism adorning
Tidal Memory Exo is no different.
The Irish electrosmith’s twenty-twenty-four outing
sways. Hiphopian phrasing bubbles out, pulse-like, punctuating the hypnotic ebb-flow of seaweed tugged by a mechanical tide: chrome: rust: mimic: shred. Patient, nondescript tempos set the stage, leaving more space for weighty intention within the songcraft than the 99,999BPM stylings of a
Neo Wax Bloom ever allowed for. I adore that album’s capacity for ecstasy via overload, but the simple melody+rhythm presented here is a refreshing contrast, offering the quiet pleasure of thump and thrum. It feels less giddy and flamboyant, but a lot sturdier, its grooves firmly established, in place of those cartoonish rapid-fire bait-and-switches. You get actual, tangible build and release. You also get confident splashes of trip hop and grime, harkening back to the 2015 Mr. Yote collab,
MILK EMPIRE, but without quite so much juvenile jank. ‘Subtle’ would be the wrong word - the seaside vistas here still blitz ballz when they feel like it (“Alloy Flea”), packing enough bass to conjure a
woof (“Coral Mimic”) - but ‘breathy’, ‘saline’ and ‘thoughtful’ ought to do the trick.
Bathed in gray and gold, it feels like a more mature, more realised
thing. There’s a shape and a presence and a soul, here, life coaxed from circuitry, ghost in machine revealed to be flesh and bone and sand.
and the production is
gushing. It’s about as dynamic and thicc as Igloo has gone. A clean, pliant, plastic timbre works well when there’s a million and one things to keep track of (a la
Neo Wax Bloom) but the less cluttered presentation here - one of barnacles and barbed wire and fishies - certainly benefits from the more textured finish. Wonderfully cohesive, too, as a result, the whole moist metallic enterprise held in place with the aforementioned, ever present, near spoken-word cadence: silo: trident: umbra:
tear out.
Personally, I still prefer the liquorice whip cacophony of Igloo’s messier works - their goofy breakneck angularity and distraction via a million things just works for me - but, tbh, that’s not the point. Rather, the real excitement of
Tidal Memory Exo comes in seeing Seamus firmly, and convincingly, state his case as more than a one-trick-pony. The songcraft here - the ebb and flow, the bells and whistles, lapping against the shore - is fantastic. The resultant castle on the seafront, built from the sog and the shrapnel, is a joy to spend time with. Best of all, it doesn’t feel like an end. The
Iglooghost octopus still has more limbs to grow; more tricks up more sleeves; send more dope album art please.
