Sonic Adventurer’s Consortium Vol 3 – V/A (Heterodox Records) – Album Review

Album: Sonic Adventurer’s Consortium Vol 3

Artist: Heterodox Records

Release Date:  August 20, 2021

Heterodox Records has a habit of releasing abstract, personal and deliberately off-kilter music on its label. I take it because that’s how life is sometimes – abstract, personal and deliberately off-kilter. This compilation spans thirteen tracks, blending ambient, electronic, experimental, glitch, and plethora of IDM flavors. But really it’s just easier to say we’re dealing with a lineup of sonic misfits with no time for chrome or polish. It’s less about a neat listening experience and more about stepping into a collective of restless heads tossing around strange frequencies and showcasing their brand of reality.

I feel like we, as humans, tend to get too caught up in the minutiae of emotional intent. We love dissecting it, chasing clean narratives about feeling. Life is anything but cohesive and this kind of art can be from that dark place; or it can be a manifestation of the bright shining moment when something extraordinary, something terrible has taken place. That’s what I love about these compilations – it’s the frenetic energy of conflicting emotions and mindsets you’re forced to see. To go from a track like Through the Fields by The Viewer to Polydactyl‘s Ancient Future Being is almost unfair for your waking brain. I mean, Days of May by Effete Berline is emotionally uplifting. But then you get sucked back down into the muck by noyouyesme (Post Prefader). It’s like I was swimming in a shallow, clear pond of bliss until a I felt tendrils pulling me back down to that dark place to meet noyouyesme‘s demonic friend, Somatic Reponses. Thanks, noyouyesme.

This music comes from cracked places and wild highs – from moments when the floor drops or the sky is ripped open. The chaos, in my opinion, gives these compilations their power. The shift between these artists carries a heavy whiplash, but as these tracks unfold they have seem to have an unshakeable willingness to collide. You start with something from Production Unit Xero (Dexter jovian’s Theme) that, while menacing, has a kind of a playful tone to it – and you end with Avola making something that if you were to put it in a bottle and sell it, no doubt the product would be called “Dread.”

Sonic Adventurer’s Consortium Vol 3 is raw, peculiar, sometimes abrasive, sometimes beautiful. It’s a journal from a group of mutants who know better than to follow the factory presets. Heterodox Records keeps doing what they do best: creating a scene where risk is the baseline.

Would definitely recommend this.