Radium88 - Perpetual Emotion Machine (2017)

Perpetual Emotion Machine is the 9th album by Radium88 and their first full-length release on Disco Gecko. Radium88 are Jema Davies (vocals, percussion, guitar) and Tim Thwaites (instruments and production). They met in Nottingham, UK, sometime in the 90's and bonded over a shared initial desire to make music that sounds the way William Gibson reads: dense, quite dark, futuristic, richly textured, strange, yet with moments of humanity, hope and beauty. In 2004 or thereabouts they stopped playing live, gradually shedding punk and hip-hop influences, absorbing instead ambient electronic and classical influences and devoting their energies to recording a series of increasingly ambitious albums on their own Lotek Recordings label. These albums feature a wide range of live instrumentation in an electronic setting. They were well received critically, and a number of tracks were used to soundtrack TV programmes. Their sound has evolved into an evocative blend of artful electronica with neo-classical piano and futuristic dream-pop. Here and there are splashes of folk, jazz and psychedelia, creating ethereal and mysterious atmospheres. While not a concept album, there are recurring themes of the evolving relationship between human and machine. Tracks feature lush ever-shifting textures, chiming, whirring, pulsing synths, the click and clack of exact clockwork, overlaid with echoing heartache-laden vocals of crystalline purity.

Tracklist:
01. Radium88 - Places Only Visited in Dreams
02. Radium88 - Heavy Water Falling Stone (Hear the Angels Mix)
03. Radium88 - Slave to the Algorithm
04. Radium88 - Elegy 1
05. Radium88 - Counting Down
06. Radium88 - Shadow Laughter
07. Radium88 - Circle Six
08. Radium88 - Bury Each and Every Prayer
09. Radium88 - Elegy 2
10. Radium88 - The Perpetual Emotion Machine
11. Radium88 - Elegy 3
12. Radium88 - Our Lives Viewed in Parallel Mirrors