Subject To Shift
Solvent
Ghostly International.
Original SCQ Review
In case you missed it, a real highlight from SCQ’s year-end interview series caught up with Solvent (Jason Amms) and his early 80s minimal-synth obsession. His dedicated exploration of the period is completely worth checking out, if not to buff-up on some awesome underground records than to understand the fertile inspiration behind Solvent’s sinister Subject To Shift.
At a time when both mainstream and indie cultures are mining what’s fresh and left from the waning 80s, Subject To Shift massages the zeitgeist with a technical respect but a futurist’s approach. Maybe I’ve been bombarded with too much retro-synth music this year, but Subject To Shift feels entirely present, not locked in analogue nostalgia or even capsulated in 2010. ‘Don’t Forget To Phone’ and ‘Loss For Words’ may invite comparisons spanning a solid twenty years, calling to mind Depeche Mode and Postal Service, respectively, but these pillars merely time-check what is otherwise a cultural vacuum of spaced-out, infectious electronic songwriting. Among the best releases on Ghostly International this year, and that’s saying a lot.
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