Geisha – 19,000 Objects (Self-released / Bandcamp)

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Geisha

We last heard from Dublin-based electronic producer Robert Crosbie with his second album as Geisha on Psychonavigation ‘Further / Closer’, and two years on this download-only EP ‘19,000 Objects’ sees him continuing to integrate live instrumental performances into his deeply textured, often downbeat electronics. If anything though, the four expansive tracks collected here see the undercurrents of darkness and unease present on his previous work moving even more to the forefront, and there’s an occasionally almost jarring transition between the heavier and the more elegant and gentle textures being explored here. ‘Pablo’ opens proceedings with this EP’s most warm and reassuring offering, sending glittering analogue synth tones wandering against glacial ambient pads before slow triphop-esque beats lock in against lazy guitar bends, the appearance of glimmering organs sending things off into a wide-eyed haze.

In sharp contrast, ‘Project Machine’ gets much darker and nastier, sending relentlessly monotonous factory-line rhythms thudding amidst gauzy layers of trailing synths and distantly howling rock guitars – while it’s certainly impressively ferocious though, a wearing sense of repetition can’t help but creep in towards the end of the track’s running length. Elsewhere, ‘The Religious 9th’ takes things off on a uneasy ambient wander that calls to mind The Orb at points as dubbed-out radio chatter echoes out against a backdrop of ominous bass drones, only for phased live cymbals to suddenly rear into focus against the doomy bass swells, before ‘Sometimes Seeing Into The Eternal Vortex Is The Energy Required By The Vortex Itself’ sees a krautrock-meets-jazz shuffling bass and drums groove powering away against eerie wiry guitars and glittering synth loops that call to mind some urgent alarm tone. While less immediately inviting than ‘Further / Closer’, there’s certainly plenty to impress on this latest EP from Crosbie under his Geisha alias.

Geisha – Project Machine – 19000 Objects (Videoclip) from A. L. Crego on Vimeo.

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A dastardly man with too much music and too little time on his hands

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