Al Lover - Existential Everything

  by Maarten Schiethart

published: 22 / 2 / 2019

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Review

Headphone music used to describe introvert music, but with billions listening to their phone these day, Al Lover's ‘Existential Everything’ LP is headphone music for today. Soundscapes - with gently pulsating beats that feel organic as well as urban - need to be listened to closely. 'Heavy Rain in Visual Fields' is the first truly wonderful track after a bunch of five previous tracks that warm up ‘Existential Everything’ in fine style. A minimalistic violin, a few light chords and a brooding atmosphere that owes a debt to slow US hip hop is perhaps not what the busy bees of Britain would go for. But in Bristol it was picked up by Stolen Body Records whose open minds persist. Drizzling trap beats - trap is the US answer to the UK's dubstep - are particularly striking on 'Subversive Science'. This second highlight has an almost analogue sound. With a bubbling transistor type of sound ‘Existential Everything’ makes one feel a bit nostalgic. Epic compositions with foreboding titles , 'Haunted Trap House', 'Death in Texas' and 'Electric Meat', plus the quirky and experimental 'Reverberating Gymnasium' round off this brittle brainwash of an album. Play loud when you're not listening over headphones. I'm not of the age to call music ‘chill ‘but 'Existential Everything' is what around thirty years ago was called post-rave party music. A seamless listen with a bite.

Track Listing:-

1 Uninhibited Dither
2 California Yuga
3 Portable Dada Device
4 Static Snake Charmer
5 Consensus Reality
6 Heavy Rain In Visual Fields
7 Hubris in Real Time
8 Subversive Science
9 Quarantined Cauldron
10 Haunted Trap House
11 Reverberating Gymnasium
12 Death In Texas
13 Electric Meat