Ooof...this one's definitely not for those who are after an easy-listening album! Upsilon Acrux's sixth album (but my first taste of their music) may be billed as the most accessible of their works but comparisons are all relative aren't they? - Radian Futura remains an album that demands total commitment and concentration from the listener.
The music is instrumental math-rock played at pace. The musicianship is top-notch from the four-piece, comprising its founder Paul Lai on guitars, as well as Chris Meszler (drums), David Moeggenberg (guitars) and Marty Sataman (bass). Additional contributing musicians on "The Infinitesimal Fractions of Ping & Pong" are "Iceman" Miller (drums) and Mike Armstrong (saxophone – good contribution too!).
This will be difficult music for most people, other than aficionados of the genre. The rhythmic element doesn't predispose one for dancing, head-banging, foot-tapping or any other kind of bodily activity due to the complexity of the time-signatures and the fact that recognisable melodies are difficult to discern. True, on the album's major opus "Transparent Seas (Radio Edit)" – ha ha ha, good joke! – there are sections on which the melodic writing is more accessible but, as a general rule, the music is not transparent to casual listeners. Amongst the most accessible sections are some bars of melodic writing and a near-poppy rhythm during "Landscape With Gun and Chandelier", the pleasant melodic phrasing about 11 minutes into "Transparent Seas" and some "easier" rhythmic structures later in the piece, together with the farewell number, the short but sweet "The Infinitesimal Fractions of Ping & Pong".
Difficult music is not a bad thing of course, and for those who enjoy complex rhythmic structures and have the time to spare to concentrate on repeated replays, then Radian Futura may be worth a gamble. The band's mission statement is "to make unprecedented music" – i.e., coining a phrase this equals "to boldly go where no man has gone before" – which is a tall order and one that is open to many pitfalls; so much so that over its six-album career the band has not managed to maintain steady personnel from one album to the next. The merits of such a musical ambition are open to debate – arguably, much bad music has been written by other artists in trying to run its course – and personally I think there are plenty of good, riffs, rhythms and melodies still to be found within more conventional musical structures; but the band have managed to make this ambitious music come nearly within the reach of "the masses" and that is to their credit. Amongst the array of many influences cited by the band there are some that I recognise, but I would say that in every case Upsilon Acrux's music is more complex: King Crimson, Frank Zappa, John Coltrane, the Mahavishnu Orcestra.
To give you a better idea of the kind of musical development to expect, I offer this elucidative extract from an interview with Paul Lai, in which he describes the compositional approach to Radian Futura: "I've made a personal effort to keep the compositions more conversational. You know how people repeat musical phrases and usually complete them on even bars? Well, when we speak to each other in any kind of conversation, the conversation can change on a word, any given word: a phrase can be interrupted and taken in a different direction because that word triggered something. I tried to use that logic in these songs, but not overtly, just knowing that if something felt right to me I would move and go on to the next sentence without completing the previous sentence. Additionally, sometimes the sentence doesn't start with the first phrase, it might start on the 3rd or 4th word because it felt more human to me. That to me was the breakthrough. It opened up phrases in a way that I think makes more human sense but perhaps less musical sense in that phrases don't start and finish where the listener might expect it to."
Do you like metered or free-form poetry? Do you prefer conventional or abstract art? Would you rather listen to a Paul McCartney or a John Cage composition? If your answer is the latter for all three questions then buy Radian Futura now!
Track Listing:-
1) In-a-Gadda-Devito (5:07)
2) Prelude to Forshadow'n (6:11)
3) Landscaoe With Gun and Chandelier (3:29)
4) Keeping Rice Evil (2:38)
5) Transparent Seas [Radio Edit] 28:27
6) The Infinitesimal Fractions of Ping & Pong (1:17)
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