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kirliancamera the8thpresident
Artist: Kirlian Camera
Title: The 8th President (single)
Genre: Dark Electronic
Release Date: 26th March 2021
Label: Dependent Records


Single Review

Those days of experimental sci-fi vignettes and dystopian future soundtracks seem comfortably packed away these days for KIRLIAN CAMERA, but when you’ve been producing quirky, spooky, left-field music for as long as they have, it’s no wonder they’ve found a new niche and made it entirely their own. Longevity is rarely the result of staying the same, certainly in the arts, and the evolution from electronic oddities to full blown pop darlings (albeit with a chilly, sinister and refreshingly timeless heart) seems to be complete.

So best release a new single that throws an icicle into the snow, which is exactly what’s been done here on the excellent new release ‘The 8th President’. This is seriously dark stuff. The pulsing, unsettling electronica has a way of creeping along like something relentless and inevitable and terrible, and the vocals - which as anyone familiar with the band, can soar and swoop and be euphoric at times - are drenched in dread and melancholia. There’s a softening towards the chorus, but that soon gives way to an even greater sense of menace, paranoia and barely contained fury. This is no single in the traditional sense but a taster for the forthcoming album - more of a warning, a statement of intent for a band now shifting clearly from its pop axis back to the shadows. It’s a superb piece of music, absolutely capturing the fear and loathing that has gripped almost every element of our modern world in this past year.

The two additional tracks here are always going to slink somewhat behind in the shadows, but they still ably demonstrate that gift for darkly uplifting adult pop that KIRLIAN CAMERA seems to create so effortlessly. Often woefully underrated, the creative and inventive edges of the band’s universe are frequently dismissed in favour of a quick glance at singer Elena Fossi, or a skim and scatter through the more obvious big-hitting songs. But the real beauty of KIRLIAN CAMERA rests deep in the assured and patient bones of a project that has always been a whole, an evolving and mutating vision of passion, pain, fear and longing, an electronic cataloguing of our times and of predictive futures that are nearly often realised.


Tracklist

01. The 8th President
02. Phoenix Aliena (Italian)
03. Golden Carousel


Line-up

Elena Alice Fossi
Angelo Bergamini


Website

https://www.facebook.com/kirliancamera.official / https://kirliancamera.bandcamp.com


Cover Picture

kirliancamera the8thpresident


Rating

Music: 9
Sound: 9
Total: 9 / 10




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