Various Seasides [LP]

Various Seasides is the long-awaited fifth album from Brooklyn based-composer Kevin Timothy O'Connor's band Talkdemonic. There is a paradoxically Empyrean homesickness to tracks like "Dream Silver" which sounds like a far-off alien trying to speak to us about the whole universe with the musical language of recent or nearby popular culture we might understand. There are sweet, panoramic slices of Shostakovich-like brassy-synth blasts in the opening tracks "Barely Dawn" and "Playland", as well as allographic fantasy merging a vibe of Baudelaire's green meadows with haunting psychic dilation in "Glass Tower"; and too, the simple yet exotic alterity and fantastical mesmerization of "Night Walk." Various Seasides dazzles with it's distinguished ingenuity inspiring repeated listening, as it is a both beguiling and sophisticated enough to be played again and again, encompassing atmosphere or more casual appreciation. It is the best thing that Talkdemonic has released to date.