The second part of Alexis Georgopoulos' ZEBRA trilogy is his most experimental album yet, a dystopian collection of cyberpunk pop and smartly processed city pop-inspired electro.
Georgopoulos lists an impressive list of contributors (including Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Death Cab for Cutie's Dave Depper, Tim Love Lee and Roméo Poirier) on his first record since 2018's "ZEBRA", but the secret to "New Pleasures" is undoubtedly his monumental collection of analog synthesizers. Each track on the album is meticulously crafted to emphasize its gear list: Linn LM-1 drums bubble and pop, and Roland's grey boxes cycle gently, while a Sequential Prophet 5 gives John Carpenter-esque polyphonic heft, and the Fairlight CMI (!) an early '80s thrust.
It's pretty clear that the NYC-based veteran - who's been releasing consistently since his 2007 Smalltown Supersound debut "In Light" - has been listening to plenty of Japanese city pop this time around. While his sound has always been informed by the synthesizer music of the past, this album's brittle, percussive constructions fall in line with the world's current YMO obsession. But typically, Georgopoulos subverts each sound to his own needs, using the era's hallmarks to suggest Gibson's cyberpunk landscapes and comment on our own contemporary collapse.
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The second part of Alexis Georgopoulos' ZEBRA trilogy is his most experimental album yet, a dystopian collection of cyberpunk pop and smartly processed city pop-inspired electro.
Georgopoulos lists an impressive list of contributors (including Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Death Cab for Cutie's Dave Depper, Tim Love Lee and Roméo Poirier) on his first record since 2018's "ZEBRA", but the secret to "New Pleasures" is undoubtedly his monumental collection of analog synthesizers. Each track on the album is meticulously crafted to emphasize its gear list: Linn LM-1 drums bubble and pop, and Roland's grey boxes cycle gently, while a Sequential Prophet 5 gives John Carpenter-esque polyphonic heft, and the Fairlight CMI (!) an early '80s thrust.
It's pretty clear that the NYC-based veteran - who's been releasing consistently since his 2007 Smalltown Supersound debut "In Light" - has been listening to plenty of Japanese city pop this time around. While his sound has always been informed by the synthesizer music of the past, this album's brittle, percussive constructions fall in line with the world's current YMO obsession. But typically, Georgopoulos subverts each sound to his own needs, using the era's hallmarks to suggest Gibson's cyberpunk landscapes and comment on our own contemporary collapse.
The second part of Alexis Georgopoulos' ZEBRA trilogy is his most experimental album yet, a dystopian collection of cyberpunk pop and smartly processed city pop-inspired electro.
Georgopoulos lists an impressive list of contributors (including Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Death Cab for Cutie's Dave Depper, Tim Love Lee and Roméo Poirier) on his first record since 2018's "ZEBRA", but the secret to "New Pleasures" is undoubtedly his monumental collection of analog synthesizers. Each track on the album is meticulously crafted to emphasize its gear list: Linn LM-1 drums bubble and pop, and Roland's grey boxes cycle gently, while a Sequential Prophet 5 gives John Carpenter-esque polyphonic heft, and the Fairlight CMI (!) an early '80s thrust.
It's pretty clear that the NYC-based veteran - who's been releasing consistently since his 2007 Smalltown Supersound debut "In Light" - has been listening to plenty of Japanese city pop this time around. While his sound has always been informed by the synthesizer music of the past, this album's brittle, percussive constructions fall in line with the world's current YMO obsession. But typically, Georgopoulos subverts each sound to his own needs, using the era's hallmarks to suggest Gibson's cyberpunk landscapes and comment on our own contemporary collapse.
The second part of Alexis Georgopoulos' ZEBRA trilogy is his most experimental album yet, a dystopian collection of cyberpunk pop and smartly processed city pop-inspired electro.
Georgopoulos lists an impressive list of contributors (including Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Death Cab for Cutie's Dave Depper, Tim Love Lee and Roméo Poirier) on his first record since 2018's "ZEBRA", but the secret to "New Pleasures" is undoubtedly his monumental collection of analog synthesizers. Each track on the album is meticulously crafted to emphasize its gear list: Linn LM-1 drums bubble and pop, and Roland's grey boxes cycle gently, while a Sequential Prophet 5 gives John Carpenter-esque polyphonic heft, and the Fairlight CMI (!) an early '80s thrust.
It's pretty clear that the NYC-based veteran - who's been releasing consistently since his 2007 Smalltown Supersound debut "In Light" - has been listening to plenty of Japanese city pop this time around. While his sound has always been informed by the synthesizer music of the past, this album's brittle, percussive constructions fall in line with the world's current YMO obsession. But typically, Georgopoulos subverts each sound to his own needs, using the era's hallmarks to suggest Gibson's cyberpunk landscapes and comment on our own contemporary collapse.