Spectreview: Passive Refraction – 27th Floor

-DEEP PINK-

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As far as high-profile vaporware-influenced ambient records go, Hiraeth Records have been making quite a name for themselves. In less than a year the new label has pushed out several successful records, all of which boast anxiety-soothing pads, futuristic locales and a penchant for overarching narratives. They, along with many of their peers, aim to evoke a specific image, one that’s as much Mamoru Oshii as Brian Eno. For the now-hundreds of works that live in this world, a titanic wonderland of floating trams and neon purple lights in dark puddles of rain, it could be as much a cinematic universe as Middle Earth, its only visual link a series of contiguous cover arts.

27th Floor, the label’s fourth release, is a collaboration between lovers, a fact most apparent in its hotel-based setting and its warm rosy tones, which read more romantic than sensual. It’s another pair of side-long pieces, each of which bear the album’s main highlights: the extended crystalline workout following Side A’s intro and the tender bells and comforting synths that open Side B. Generally, the softer the album goes the stronger it plays, though the wooziness that marks the album’s more exploratory moments makes more sense in the context of its jarring twist ending. That ending, which perhaps provides too many answers, nearly breaks the spell, but it does lend a voyeuristic element to the record in retrospect. Like the weightiness of a dedication, it’s the notion that 27th Floor is vectorial, the alchemic transmission between romantic partners, that altogether makes it even more than its gorgeous surface chimes.

Recommended for A Very Cyberpunk Valentine’s Day.