Strategy – A Cooler World (Constallation Tatsu) Album Review
Things’re heating up out there, in every sense of the word. Temperature-wise, we’re past Memorial Day, which means we’re tilting our way into Summer here in the Northern Hemisphere. Things’re just getting hotter in general, with climate change causing record heatwaves – with all of the accompanying tragedy – nearly every year. People’s moods seem to be matching the ambient temperature, as well, with so many seemingly ready to simply flip out over the slightest infraction. Sometimes you wish that people could simply “be cool.”
On his most recent album for the visionary electronic label Constellation Tatsu, Strategy – the electronic project of Portland‘s Paul Dickow – brings down the mercury a couple of degrees, acting as a kind of metaphorical swamp cooler or ice cube on the collective pulse with seven tracks of serene, drifting ambient music. On A Cooler World, Strategy dispenses with beats almost entirely in favor of fogbank synths and archaic oscillators, all drenched in a Beaufort Gyre of thick reverb and deep, dubby delays.
A Cooler World seems to get gauzier and more diaphonous as it goes. Album opener “Auspicious Moment” feels nearly solid, with a sturdy rime of glistening LFO that’s thick enough to walk across. Fissures seem to be forming by the time you get to the title track, with “A Cooler World” hinting at dark frigid depths beneath its will o’ the wisp beats until the bottom drops out entirely, leaving you in an indigo and aquamarine wonderland. Time seems to slow to a crawl in this other realm, as “Earthling” hisses and broods in slow motion before it opens up into neon arcs of halogen synth. All forward thrust abruptly ceases on “A Distant Destination,” though, which seems to float and hang like a mermaid’s cavern of treasures until it starts to shimmy and thump its way back into motion in the back half.
Things seem to be thawing out a bit by “The Abandoned Outpost,” which even has the barest outline of a beat, albeit a dub techno one. The contemplative stillness returns on “The Rabbit Hole,” though, with a single sustained synth chord shining like a midnight sun while a sonar bleep marks static time, a sign that all things are all clear, that it’s full speed ahead. Finally, things close out with a different take on “A Distant Destination,” like the original in an alternate dimension, where black stars hang in a goldenrod sky.
Don’t let all the arctic imagery misdirect you, A Cooler World isn’t as frigid as it sounds. It’s less Sleep Research Facility or Biosphere and more music for the thaw, when wildflowers start to claw their way back to the sunlight. It’s a gorgeous album for late spring/early Summer and yet another fascinating entry into Strategy’s overflowing discography.
A Cooler World is out now on Constellation Tatsu.
Strategy is playing tonight, May 29, with Paranoid London and dj dissolve at Process PDX.
