Arp - New Pleasures

  • An album of gleaming synth funk that captures the delicious but empty decadence of mass marketing and commercialism.
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  • Whenever New York based producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Arp leans into a concept, it unfolds as a form of musical world-building. 2018's Zebra was blissed-out Balearic that conjured up an otherworldly tropical paradise. You could practically feel the white water wrapping around your ankles as marimbas and buoyant jazz guided you through a transcendent adventure for the senses. New Pleasures, his latest release and the second installment in the Zebra trilogy on Mexican Summer, takes a more metropolitan approach. Set centuries ahead of our own, on New Pleasures Arp doubles down on his love of ancient keyboards (Prophet 5, Fairlight CMI, DX7, Moog Model D) and drum machines (Linn LM-1, Oberheim DMX), honoring the past in order to conceptualise an uncanny, commerce-driven future. The patiently unfurling opener "The Peripheral" feels like border control before entering Arp's bustling megacity. Squelchy pads plume and crest with an early morning splendor, while whirring synthlines sound like futuristic tech scanning away for biometric data. These alien overtones are ever present throughout the album, the vintage sounds makes the music feel like an unconsummated vision of the future from the 20th century past. The live hand drumming on tracks like "Traitor (Dub)," next to the pitch-bent synth funk highlights like "i: /o"—almost Edenic—creates an unplaceable ambiance somewhere between Soviet brutalism and Singaporean sky gardens. There's a cheeky style to New Pleasures that makes it fun, albeit at times directionless, ride. The percussion feels almost reckless, with a constant forward motion—it's near impossible to sit still during the hypnotically dubby "Le Palace," for example. Beneath its gleaming exterior, what sounds like someone drumming on sheets of metal brings to mind the image of this industrial grid being built in real time. Where 2018's Zebra had soul in abundance, the absence of soul—or at least, a glossy facsimile of it—is what defines the commerce driven dystopia of New Pleasures. "Sponge (For Miyake)" has an attractively shiny exterior but there's no tension or arc to it, which also goes for the appealing but lightweight "Embassy Disco." Arp has all the right ingredients: quirky chimes, energising stabs and searching marimbas. But their odd, seemingly random arrangements feel like they're in search of something that doesn't actually exist. Still, maybe that's on purpose. Arp chalked up his inspiration to a "a space between idea and reality, and fact and fiction, so often inhabited by commerce, which conjures our fantasies for us." His oddball ideas and zany instrumentation turn out to be the perfect tools for capturing the essence of the unpredictable ways corporations try and tempt us into parting ways with our cash. Rubbery basslines bend to your every whim, while proggy synths and sudden bursts of arpeggio zip past, leaving firm impressions on the brain like neon signs or clever slogans. The spirit of the concept is dazzlingly portrayed at times, but the LP also conveys the emptiness of these things, the true idea of a "new pleasure"—everything we want, though not always enough of what we need. But it's great while it lasts.
  • Tracklist
      01. The Peripheral 02. New Pleasures 03. Preset Gloss 04. Sponge (for Miyake) 05. Eniko 06. i: /o 07. Plaza 08. Le Palace 09. Traitor (Dub) 10. Embassy Disco 11. Cloud Storage
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