‘My Spirit Animal Is A Goth Teenager’ by Owlbinos of Northfield is an album which is offering itself as a multipurpose mindtrip tool.
The music may be filed as ambient, tagged with noise, field recording, collage – I think you get it.
A term marked by Owlbinos comes into my mind: foundscapes.
The album’s been released on Romeda Records, a small label from the northwestern corner of the UK, active since 2014 and presenting a broad palette or styles in the field of electronica, all of high quality.
The digital version has 15 tracks while the tape edition (in a beautiful silver antistatic bag and with lots of gimmicks – buttons, postcard, liner notes) is presented as a continuous mix by the artist himself.
It’s details like this which catch my attention, which are making the difference between a download or stream and a love-bursting and hand assembled tape package.
The packaging is great – what about the music? I mentioned the ‘multipurpose mindtrip tool’ above – therefore I’m going to give you 3 purpose suggestion for closer classification:
Purpose 1: Music for daybreaks.
30 minutes before daybreak is the point to start listening in this first example, getting in the mood for something new, maybe even without having slept, dreamy moments interchanging with ideas, memories and plans. A certain restlessness, only buffered by the tiredness still residing in your bones.
Purpose 2: Music to stumble through the night to.
Vague steps, not knowing where you’re going, coming from, nor what is all around you. Start the tape when entering the one unlighted shortcut on your way home, the path you usually avoid, just because you might lose track. Well, you enter, you lose track, you encounter fairies and elves, pass by a construction site, cross a highway and in the end arrive home safely, although with a bit of mud on your shoes and a shuddered confusion in your mind.
Purpose 3: Music like a chain of thoughts.
It’s been said that meditation is to prolong the moments in between thoughts – the short break after one thought has passed and the next one rises. ‘My Spirit Animal Is a Goth Teenager’ plays with field recordings, samples and droning soundscapes and instantly carried me away like a chain of thoughts – occasionally I had to open my eyes and check back into reality, just to drown again a few seconds later.
Do you want to try one of these mindtrips?
Are you going to find your own purpose for this album?
Will you also love it?
You’ll answer these questions yourself
‘Owlbinos Of Northfield – My Spirit Animal Is A Goth Teenager’ can be ordered via Romeda Records.
You can find the artist on Twitter: @owlbinos
Note: One of my next reviews is going to be about the meanwhile released remix album of “My Spirit Animal Is A Goth Teenager”, containing not less than 11 remixes and also one new track by Owlbinos Of Northfield.