ARP
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Recorded over the course of a year in which it’s author Alexis Georgopoulos relocated from California (San Francisco) to New York, The Soft Wave, ARP’s 2nd album, captures a transitional period. If his debut In Light found inspiration in the white light particular to California – not to mention a certain cultural isolation and an inclination towards pastoral Kosmishe records – The Soft Wave embodies a significant shift. It is a significant development. The Soft Wave will rush up to you slowly – but it will hit you. It will dowse you. In it, you’ll find flecks of slatted light and ultraviolets. You’ll locate an engaging peace within the ecstatic racket. You will recline in The Soft Wave. If it moves with elegance, with patience, there are rushes too. Whereas In Light was made with only vintage analog synthesizers, The Soft Wave incorporates an arsenal of guitars, piano, flute, Ebows. The result is a dense brocade of sound. The special yearning of pastoral visions and coastal realities remains, but here, the city peeks in. ARP is all the richer for it, and the result is a uniquely communicative mélange. As its sounds assemble, each cadence engages the kinds of subtle gifts of meaning that we find in intuition, inquiry, ecstatic states, and joy. These are pieces that speak in emphatic whispers, in a language whose compositional undertow is the same that masters our sensual lives. It is a language of inviting abstraction: friendly, even profound. To refer to stylistic touchstones would be to list too much: Cosmic, Space Rock, Krautrock, Ethiopian Piano Music, Noise, Dub, Minimalism, Sound Library Music, Shoegaze, Spiritual Free Jazz, African High Life, Minimal Techno even the Singer / Songwriter tradition. No matter. All we need to know is that The Soft Wave, recorded to 2–inch analog tape, is a warm, enveloping music that succeeds somewhere outside the hyper-compressed digitalization of our age. That it’s warm glow – existing as it does somewhere between the philosophical tone of Brian Eno’s vocal records and a Balaeric coastal scene fit for an Eric Rohmer film – may very well appeal to a broad, sophisticated range of tastes. The Soft Wave finally coheres with its artwork: eschewing any vacant pseudo-mysticism one might associate with such numinous music, the record’s black, white & silver cover reimagines ancient Greek classicism as something Warhol might interpret for a Fellini film with a few scenes set in 1979 Manchester. It is striking and affective. Leading up to The Soft Wave, the past two years were full of milestones for Georgopoulos. He composed his first score for Modern Dance in Replica, a duet between Merce Cunningham and Trisha Brown dancers, which debuted at New York’s New Museum. He produced a sound installation at the Audio Visual Arts gallery (Sam Amidon, Alan Licht, Kalup Linzy). He was handpicked to play a live score to artist Doug Aitken’s film Migration at 303 Gallery in New York, and was selected to participate in the Boredoms-curated 8.8.08 88-drummer extravaganza in Los Angeles. He remixed Lindstrom. His music was featured in director Gary Hurstwit’s follow-up to the Helvetica documentary, Objectified. He also made music in Q&A (formerly Expanding Head Band), his new DFA project with partner Quinn Luke, and his band The Alps released their debut studio album III (Type) to universal acclaim. ARP shared bills with Cluster (at a now legendary outdoor show on the coast of Big Sur), Sonic Boom, Lindstrøm, White Rainbow, Four Tet, Lucky Dragons, Growing, and Wooden Shjips, among others. And, most recently, he released FRKWYS Volume III, a collaborative album with minimalist composer Anthony Moore, as part of RVNG’s new FRKWYS series. The duo recently performed with a string section as part of New York City’s prestigious Wordless Music Festival.
