The St. Louis, Mo., experimental composer Joseph Raglani approaches his sound like both a musician and a DJ. His newest offers a hectic mix where synths ripple in overlapping circles, melodies dive into longer tones, beats morph, and static melts.
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There's so much happening on Real Colors of the Physical World that absorbing it all might be impossible. In Joseph Raglani's hectic mix, synths ripple in overlapping circles, melodies dive into longer tones, beats morph from pin pricks into plunges, and churning static melts into what sounds like a funk band jamming underwater. His hyperactive sound doesn't just encourage repeat listens-- it makes you wonder if you could ever hear it the same way twice.
Making music sound busy isn't unique, especially when it's electronic; nor is it a guarantee of quality. But even though Raglani's approach has precedents, his knack for mixing and matching sounds, through wavy dissolves, liquefied cuts, and coursing turns, is distinct. In a sense, he's equal parts musician and DJ-- attentive enough to sonic detail that he avoids mere pastiche, but restless enough that his insistence on adding new ideas injects everything with constant energy.
Part of why Real Colors feels so busy is that its first two tracks last over 20 minutes each, and they unfurl like eventful journeys. Apparently portions were designed separately, since the track list includes parenthetical subtitles. Maybe if Raglani had added gaps of silence in between, Real Colors would be easier to digest-- but it wouldn't be as interesting, or as enjoyable. Because as fascinating as the individual passages are, the fissions between them are even more striking.
Examples abound. I'm partial to a section early in opener "Fog of Interruption" where a blasting synth crumbles into distant transmissions, then rises from the dead in the form of shiny, laser-like reflections. Even better is a passage in the following track, "Terrain of Antiquity", wherein a chaotic mass of lighting-bolt synths slowly turns into a vocoder-like melody that recalls the Residents at their most beatific.
There are echoes of other antecedents throughout, particularly the strain of German experimentation known as Kosmiche Musik. But where Raglani's last widely-distributed release, 2008's Of Sirens Born, felt like a synthesis of his influences, Real Colors bears his own stamp more clearly. That comes across most in its endless pulse, which eternally bubbles and often threatens to burst. His loops feel solid enough to last forever, but never settled or relaxed. Instead, Raglani is always as interested in what his sounds could do next as what they're currently doing.
The final two tracks on Real Colors are significantly shorter-- each lasts just a bit over five minutes-- and less varied than the first two. Where their predecessors were like aural colleges, these pieces are more conventionally song-like. Each begins with an arpeggiated loop that passes through modifications in scale and volume, creating a kind of verse-chorus pattern. "The Exploded View" in particular is a bona-fide song, with haunting vocals that follow the synths through cycles of tension and release.
Despite the shift toward contained structure, Raglani makes the second half of the album as restless as its first. Perhaps this is a cleverly-designed after-effect-- once you're immersed in his busy environment, even simple synths can sound ripe with potential. Maybe it's the basic urgency he gives his loops, a skill he's recently honed with Mike Pollard in the excellent duo Bryter Layter. Whatever the reason, Real Colors of the Physical World demonstrates the beguiling versatility of Joseph Raglani's sound-crafting skills.