Writing in a preview back in April, we described how Metavari‘s new album Soft Continuum (Studies Vol. 2) is Nathaniel David Utesch’s reimagination of their 2009 debut full-length, Be One of Us and Hear No Noise, functioning “as both a work by and tribute to founding member Ty Brinneman who passed away in 2020.” Out this summer on Joyful Noise Recordings, the album plunders an entire gamut of influences to develop its contemporary electronic style, from retro analog electronics a la Silver Apples, to Giallo and Italian horror movie sensibilities, and cosmic new age tones.
First single ‘Kings Die Like Other Men (Rediscovery)’ used this to weave a cinematic composition full of cosmic detail and latent drama, updating the comparatively reflective 2009 original into something larger and more far-reaching (as captured in the video by Alex Osmolovsky and Vlad Voronin). The song highlights Metavari’s willingness to confront mortality on the grandest stage, something also illustrated by the naming of the album’s conceptual tracks. ‘Drift’, ‘Swell’, ‘Arc’, ‘Flux’, ‘Swarm’, ‘Collapse’ and ‘Bloom’ take their names from stages of the phenomenon of stellar rebirth, charting a journey from life to death and back again on an almost unimaginable scale. Finding both darkness and light with cosmic rhythms.
Latest single ‘Páirc Sequence’ is no less inventive or evocative, finding a balance between organic, celestial and electronic styles to weave another transportive composition. In 2020, Metavari was invited to create music for a park in Fort Wayne, and Utesch developed an app called SoundWalk which uses proximity and location to play the user music at the appropriate moment, meaning a soundtrack could play and change according to a person’s exact location. “Páirc Sequence” represents a version of that experience, losing the interactivity but still capturing the inherent movement and energy that sat at its heart.
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Again Metavari use the song’s video to further the style. Shot and directed in Amsterdam by filmmaker Hans Peter Schepp, the film features Nancy Burer of the Dutch National Ballet and Donnie Duncan, Jr. of the Netherlands Dans Theater contemporary dance company and uses mirrored dances to accentuate the motion of the electronics.
Soft Continuum (Studies Vol. 2) is out via Joyful Noise Recordings on the 10th June and you can pre-order it from the Metavari Bandcamp page.
