#1024 Darkside - Psychic

Finally! Maybe this is the payoff for all the horseshit aimless experimentalism we've been suffering though for the last couple of years: Darkside has weaponized it and made something magical, nicking snatches of The Field's overminimalism, Oneohtrix's detuned wobblefuckery, Radiohead's most far-fetched deconstructions, Daft Punk at their most icy, bouncing off of half a dozen other points of reference and arriving at an evocative, inviting, haunting masterpiece.

This plays by scant few established rules, but it's decidedly listenable, using distant samples, searing vocal twists, warm Rhodes, and that unstoppable analog bass, especially that bass, to stunning effect, again and again and again. You'll find yourself falling in love with it even as you struggle to understand why. The music straddles the line between post-rock and experimental electronica but rises without any of the heavy lifting those scenes tend to demand, coming on like a mysterious stranger sweeping away your inhibitions.

There're guitars, but they don't exactly play riffs. There're drums, but the don't exactly play beats. There're vocals, but they're barely singing. And yet it gets in you like rock, landing somewhere between Dark Side of the Moon and Endtroducing. It's like academic software engineering out there: everybody's inventing new languages, Darkside's one of the few that's saying something 4.5/5