3 out of 5

Label: Broken Press

Produced by: Andrew Crawshaw

Transitioning from drums to electronics, Andrew Crenshaw took on the name Meridian Arc, and started iterating on a sound that climbed from 70s psychedelia, to 80s synthwave, to 90s electronica, wrapping it all with an ironic timelessness: neither futuristic or retro; the music exists in inbetweens, hopeful and unnerving at the same time.

But this is also a sound that takes time to find. Aphantasia, Crenshaw’s second album as Meridian Arc, performs that finding intra-release, kind of humbly shuffling through slowburn horror before settling into sci-fi electro on the release’s latter half. It’s the first half that comes across as less certain of itself: after a grabbing mood-setting atmospheric intro, we sift through some retro horror beats that are charmingly analog feeling – not everything is zipped up super tight – but also kind of stall out after their core melodies / rhythms have been established. Coming off of the intro, which is nice and short, things start off sounding pretty cool, but once these openers have run through a minute or so of what they have to offer, the tunes seem somewhat thin. But there does seem to be a purposeful transition to more expansive works, represented both in song titles – scary-coded titles like Sea Of Darkness are swapped out for 70s bleep bloop like Positronic Matrix – and by another short, interstitial track. After this, Aphantasia kicks up several notches, with acid-y synths crunching atop the beats, and giving songs more urgency and apparent layers.

What’s important / impressive is that throughout, none of this sounds exactly like some of the genres / eras called out. It’s not nostalgia baiting retro, or trying too hard to mimic horror composer A or B; Crenshaw has found his own balance amongst these approaches, and it makes Aphantasia very much worth listening to from end to end,