Warning: this is not what atoms look like. Hopefully.
Okay, there is an admittedly tenuous link here: like Baber, Emmett Elvin plays keyboards in a well-known prog band, though in his case it's psychedelic prog squadron Knifeworld (which also plays host to fellow BEM alumnus Charlie Cawood, who's also in My Tricksy Spirit, because there are secretly only about ten people on our roster and three of them are Charlie). Assault on the Tyranny of Reason is his third release with us, following up on 2014's Bloody Marvels and our 2015 expanded rerelease of his expansive Emmettronica archive compilation - both of these are well worth a listen if what we show you this week is to your taste.
Like Bloody Marvels before it, Assault on the Tyranny of Reason sees Emmett wielding a laundry list of instruments, including no fewer than four different types of guitar, plus various friends and allies backing him up with strings and brass and still more guest musicians contributing everything from clarinets to church organs. Even a cursory glance at that personnel list tells you this is going to be something pretty special.
And, well, it is. It's difficult to choose a sample track from the album. I know this is kind of a cop-out, but the arrangement of the tracks is pretty sharp and they flow into each other very well, and we'd recommend listening to this one as a single unit if you can. That said, 'Mars Is So Yesterday' holds up pretty damn well on its own - take a listen.
This song's in the minority on the album in that it actually has lyrics, and even here they're used sparingly. The instrumentation, though, is where the real depth is. It's tight and precise, and Mark Cawthra's production work brings out the very best in it, but, more than that, it's thoroughly strange. I don't just mean that it's sonically distinctive and hard to pin down, though it's both of those things too. No, Assault on the Tyranny of Reason's weirdness runs darker than that, tugging at psychological and emotional threads that always seem just out of reach. It's sometimes confusing, but never confused; Emmett has a grand, masterful plan, and he drags you into it kicking and screaming.
For clarity, this is absolutely a good thing.
It's a sentiment echoed by many of the album's reviews. Roger Trenwith noted "an undercurrent of real uneasiness" in parts of what he called "one of the most imaginative albums... in this year". Shawn Dudley said that he could "highly recommend the destination", praising Emmett for keeping Assault both accessible and deep - a tough balance to strike at the best of times. And Sid Smith, for PROG Magazine, called it "enthralling" and "devoid of any padding or waffle".
Assault on the Tyranny of Reason is available right now from the BEM webstore.
Status Update
We've already mentioned Suite for Piano and Electronics, but it bears re-mentioning: the album's less than three weeks away from launch (June 15th is the date) and we highly recommend preordering now.
The Euphoric is out, released last week and accompanied a suitably face-melting launch gig in Camden. Grab your copy here, perhaps after digesting some of the reading material below...
Review Roundup
Oh good God that's a lot of reviews of The Euphoric. Five of 'em, to be precise:
The Progressive Aspect also did an excellent writeup of the launch gig, which we recommend giving a read if you couldn't make it.
We were also pleasantly surprised to find a February release still getting some attention: a 9/10 review of Tonochrome's A Map in Fragments on DPRP! Our thanks to André de Boer for his coverage - why not give it a listen yourself, eh?
