Actress - Statik - new album out 7th June
In the dark woods, beyond blood-flecked pines, a silent pool (a portal) shimmers.
Gaze in. Look hard. Glitch the mind’s eye.
See the new moon static in a smoke-hazed sky.
Uncanny. You’ve no reflection here.
(You are not here.)
Do not look away as the water whirls.
Stare deeper, edge closer, surrender to the
FALL.
(fall)
fall into…
hell (not hell) nor paradise.
A grand apparition in silver monochrome flickers.
Flames dance in orichalcum bowls, reflection pools line a marble hall.
This ruinous temple still astounds. Still.
Be still. Listen. There is no fear here.
Listen. Listen as spectral echoes of moments lived:
melodies, motifs, refrains drip, splaszh, cascade.
As azd rain lines Poseidon’s walls, a pyre towers before glistening throne.
A ceremony (a requiem) begins.
Awash with silken sound and aqueous haze, elevated above blue-black flames, floating.
Floating up/down, down/up. Swoop up/down out and into the infinite waters beyond.
In this dove-grey sky beneath the waves, dolphins chatter and spray amid piercing moon rays.
This dove mellow – under the trees and woods and earth and blood – is where you are (reflected).
Now and before/forever (rip)
Actress — the moniker of British electronic producer Darren Cunningham — announces his new album, Statik, out July 7th via Smalltown Supersound, and shares singles “Dolphin Spray” & “Static.” Cunningham’s latest studio album is imbued with a sense of freedom and stillness. From conception through creation and release, Statik has been blessed with an almost unnatural ease. For Actress, who wrote the majority of this record in an extensive flow state, the celestial and expansive project serves as a testament to artistic liberation. “Static,” a shadowy and buzzy ambient track released quietly last week, sets the stage for the bouncy and twinkling “Dolphin Spray.”
Following last year’s LXXXVIII (released via Ninja Tune), the subtly majestic Statik marks Actress’ first full length for Smalltown Supersound. The collaboration between Cunningham and the esteemed Oslo-based purveyors of elevated sonics evolved organically following Actress’ remix of a Carmen Villain cut for the 12” of her Only Love From Now On LP.
Once ‘inside’ the Statik experience, listeners may well find themselves newly calm and meditative. Of course, those well-versed in Actress’s works are well-traveled when it comes to fantastical flights of the mind. Transportive sonics that spark inner-voyages – whether through nocturnal cityscapes, or far above and beyond, through Saturn’s rings and past Pluto’s moons – are prime Cunningham terrain. Yet while Statik is unmistakably an Actress LP, it’s also distinctly aquatic and subtly primordial, and so offers his audience novel elemental atmospheres to flow through. Listening closely, influential visions of aqueous realms, such as the mythic Atlantis, and evocations of ancient ceremonies as well as flying birds (and, perhaps, humans) may reveal themselves. No matter if Statik inspires you to soar above or below the horizon, Actress and Smalltown Supersound promise you a safe and transcendent journey.
Statik Tracklist:
- Hell
- Static
- My Ways
- Rainlines
- Ray
- Six
- Cafe Del Mars
- Dolphin Spray
- System Verse
- Doves Over Atlantis
- Mello Checx