Brainwashed (US)

Perpetual is presented as a three movement composition that progresses adeptly from soft melodies and tones into a wider reaching feel of dissonance, then back to spacious, open, and beautiful music. The first movement has the quartet generating delicate, warm layers from their stringed and synthetic instruments. Fragments of voice, and a bit of electronic buzzing offset the carefully interplaying frequencies, resulting in a lush, tone-heavy arrangement of sound.

The second part still features Sakamoto’s distinctive piano, but his playing focuses on the lowest notes and the recording perfectly capturing the metallic, vibrating dissonance of the strings. This hint of chaos sets the stage for the remainder of the piece. Odd noises and unexpectedly bleak music box sounds appear, with the artists blending organic and electronic sources extremely well. Deupree’s modular synthesizer performance introduces just the right amount of chirps and noisy scrapes to give the piece an appropriately hollow, slightly bleak feel. The final movement is a natural progression from the previous, where the artists begin with clattering sounds, but they bring the sound back to the opening via pure guitar and piano sounds, creating a spacious, yet delicate sound.