4 out of 5

Label: Fonolith

Produced by: Neil Scrivin & Eric Sferro

Neil Scrivin has covered outside-of-time narratives as The Night Monitor, 70s paranoia as Doomlode, 80s retro groove as Phono Ghosts, modern day IDM as Meatbingo… Hm, what are we missing?

Featured on minidisc, and name-checking a very internet-ready 90s HTML world, Hyperlink Dream Sync is delivered to us via Scrivin and occasional associate Sferro, soundtracking that “missing” era as, essentially the score to Fruitiger Aero. The synthy sleekness of HDS’ eight tracks run closer to Phono Ghosts bounciness than any other Neil pseudonyms, but the beats are smoothed over; the synths’ bleep-bloop given some glisten. The duo gives the record shape with a bit of a musical narrative: an opening statement of intent soars in like an old screensaver; ‘Christy’ and ‘Mirror the Eagle’ are shorter, with some ambient notes – adding a bit of mystery and light tension to wide open, pixelated vistas – before things open back out to spacier realms with the slightly more reserved but grooving ‘Cathedral of Blue’ and then mirroring the kind of spacey, outward-gazing beats of the opener with the concluding ‘Galaxy Structure.’

It’s a wind-in-your-face journey, bobbing with headphones on to your discman; this is a very particular type of retro, effected with deep love by Scrivin and Sferro. …But: Fruitiger Aero is also the flavor of liminal spaces; a kind of “lost” memory. There’s a superreal superficiality to it, and that is mimicked as well: HDS is quite endlessly loopable, but also somewhat forgettable. I would consider that by design, but, nonetheless, it makes it a record I tend to forget to put on, until I stumble across that minidisc in my collection. (And, y’know, listen to the digital copy, because I don’t have a minidisc player, Neil…)