The Great Vague is an ode to all the music that is now extinct and an ode to all the music that is yet to be born. Still, the music sounds as if it exists on the cusp of a continual now: hyper-modern avantgarde electronics blend characteristic, disjointed breakbeats with deconstructed shoegaze, all underpinned by the transcendent sensibilities of devotional music in the vein of Iasos and Matthewdavid’s Mindflight.
On opener and title track, The Great Vague, we’re raised to euphoric heights through a melan-choly filter – the ecstasy is somehow realist but no less romantic for it; the bittersweet knowl-edge of the temporal running setting a sense of longing with a nod to Kevin Shield’s torrential guitars on My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless and the marathon pulse of Fuck Buttons’ Slow Focus. Where the first half of the track might find itself on the dancefloor, the second half has closed its eyes. The synthetic kick is replaced by a heartbeat that roots the entire track before an arpeggiated synth spirals in an outward and upward direction. Synths take on qualities of the human voice, and tape delays flutter; seaweed in motion, everything blacklit.
Later, Venhændelse feels like soaring above the clouds, fog and moisture softening the sounds of the city; accentuating other, mechanical sounds that are caught upwind. Club sensibilities are rendered entirely devotional. It’s connected to the city, but it’s beautiful; transcendent. Visible Winds of Spring is sight obscured, but proprioception ensuring that your physical movement is graceful; light- and sure-footedness set to breakbeats and Fruity Loops-sounding bass. VWoS sounds like a windscreen while it rains; or tears refracting street lights. It’s fireworks reflected in a pond of oily water.
Nested somewhere between Stars of the Lid and Boards of Canada, the opening notes of Lid- less Sleep feels like a memory that loops and loops; you can’t stop reliving or revising the same situation again and again. Instead of forcing it away; it becomes richer, comes closer with each thematic repetitions. The beat adds a feeling of determination and it feels like memory is being worked through – dealt with and digested.
The Great Vague is through-and-through a wild introduction to one of Denmark’s most promis-ing and forward-thinking producers.
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