Poppet - Future Tense
A strange outsider project which so far has spawned 7 digital Bandcamp releases. We are in an eerie and surreal multiple-dimension dungeon-synth inspired universe. According to the artist himself, he gets ideas from cartoons, occult, and wizardry. A kind of mad-hatter sort of a wizard, or the Captain Beefheart of dungeon synth maybe?. Nonetheless, this one being his newest release (7th June 2018), running 40 minutes with 8 tracks.
The albums also work around a certain idea which has been described as following:
This album features me veering into unfamiliar territory when it comes to Dungeon Synth. With Horror Synth, Synthwave, and Black Ambient elements, this album was a lot of fun to work on. Fitting the name, Future Tense is more focused on science fiction than ancient fiction, while still keeping that lovable quirky edge
First track Simplicity of Fog get´s you into that John Carpenter horror flick with it´s atmospheric and haunting retro-synth, there are also minor elements here which reminds me of Coil... and Nico? (for some reason). Strange minor Arabic elements are also to be encountered here. Childhood memories are at work here also, the soundtracks to horror series for kids?. You know ... Goosebumps, Are You Afraid of the Dark etc. Second track Onwards Aoshima it get´s randomly weird! Epic, dramatic and VERY improvisated piece. An 8-bit´ish synth, a string synth, Dimmur Bogir (kind of) piano-work all challenging each other (more or less). Hints of order and melody here and there which ends of clashing in mayhem and chaos. Tons of weird chaotic sci-fi mood swings in this.
An interesting fusion of ideas and sounds here, but a bit too random-created for me. The next track Left-Hand Track has a more retro/synth-wave/Jarre wipe to it, with those Arabic sounding elements again (remember the Pc-game Magic Carpet?). Fourth track A Black Dress... adds more eerieness o the mind. But with the fifth track, it does get ... catchy? Almost kind of early Aphex Twin here (Analogue Bubblebath vol.3). A fantastic evocative electro-soundtrack! The sounds are amazing here!. Sixth track Of Magics Old... sounds like a magic experiment being on the edge of going wrong. Did it go wrong (I don´t know), but the wizard at work is... quite mad!. Seventh offering of a track calld Into the Caverns adds more horror-synth to the mix. Last track the Abandoned Lighthouse being one of the most easy-going of the tracks on the album, being a decent mystical dream´ish ending.
So there you go!. It is a messy and challenging affair with Future Tense. Again there are some interesting ideas being mixed with other ideas. My personal opinion would be that I would like if the album had more tracks like A Black Dress (the fifth track). But who am I to decide/judge? I think the artist has made an honest and sincere album, trying to mutate the sound (and aesthetic) of dungeon synth into something quite else. And I am happy to have someone like him around, trying to journey and explore other sound-territories worth exploring. Tired of traditional dungeon-exploring in a typical medieval world?. Then try this for a change!.
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