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Patrick Atkinson has created the 'full-circle' album of the year out of grief.
The alias of Patrick Atkinson comes Stuck Sunsets, someone who has had his feet in pop and experimental music for some time now. Under the codename, Orpheline, Dallas Boner & the duo Leap Wars with one half of Yeah You.
Delitism, conceived out of the loss of his brother. The title being a macabre joke about competitive brotherly love, and death being the trump card. Reflect this sense of death and loneliness that comes with grief. An obvious darkness in the tone of the gloomy soft vocals, fading the thumping beat into one energetic sound. Arrangements are similar to noise music, obvious R&B throughout. It feels dream-like, shimmering guitar chords with hypnotic tones. You’re lost in each track. A definitive pressure to focus on every angle of the song. As it melts away into the core surface of what it stands for.
Creativity often allows for one to release a sense of pressure or free it onto something else. And for a while, it felt like this was lost in music, amongst a pit of endless tunes. Having this emotional creativity rise to the surface is so important. Not for a count quantity but in regard to letting the listener connect. It’s this sense of connection that’s often difficult to do. You can write endless lyrics about love and loss. However, when you do this and the beat, the feel, each instrument is forced into the act of emotion. It puts the songs on a different level. A new understanding of how music relates to you.
Each song has a harmonic energy, set in a basis of nature. Transporting you to a forest while you’re endlessly chasing for the finale of a film. A sense of rush in each tune that has a mysterious oddity whilst vocals fade in and out. ‘Climb’, a song with headphone bleeding arrangements. Rising from a mellow calmness into a manic mental state with boundless clapping in the right speaker. Patting, alongside absorbing drumming, you’re instantly in a nightclub. Where the focus is on Patrick, waiting for the next beat. The next patter. An insightful consciousness that’s suddenly on one’s sleeve.
You instantly feel the ability of adoration. The passion and self-destruction that appears after the death of someone you love. The album feels full circle. In the drama and push of each song. The mellow intensity on every vocal and sense of running through escapism. You feel how each song wants you to feel. ‘Delitism’ brings in a sense of pressure. A classic electronica, reminiscent of Silver Apples, ‘Oscillations’. Whilst also having the chill-wave of Toro Y Moi, a washed-out ambience, feeling dramatic yet still. You’re suddenly in space, or a Dr Who episode. Anxiety increasing repetitively with the fast beat alongside angsty drumming. It’s blisteringly powerful. You feel mad as you’re holding on for more.
This is an album that would be perfect on vinyl or cassette. Luckily, we’ve got the cassette which has been released on the 4th December. The ability to go back and forth to each song. To be able to hold something tangible as the rush of each track gets you. For the completion. You have to finish this album. There’s a burden on you if you don’t. You get to the title song and you feel a need to conclude what you’ve started. You’re hanging on to every single sudden, forceful and energetic note. It’s tragically beautiful. An accurate insight into the madness of the love the human mind can possess. Fighting for love and continuing to fight for it within music.
When a musician helps you understand their emotions, not quite completely, but on a level where you don’t need to discuss it. That’s powerful. You can hold on to the delicate ability to push each tool to the maximum. Death is something we as people don’t discuss. We discuss the fact of it happening. But whether we will ever be face to face accepting with the finale, who knows. This album allows you to compete with that ability. Trying to understand someone leaving. And whether or not you believe in something after death, there’s a universal understanding of death within this album. The unknown.
A thrilling entity within these songs that is infinite. The vocals are self-assured. A sense of repetition that we may find on an indie track. ‘No Love Deep Cuts’ Compiled with an echo of a harp elegy. Transcending the bitter drumming with hailstorm of noise into an erosion. One that slowly stops. ‘I Don’t Sing’, vocals emerge fragmented, like glass falling on a ground and shattering backwards. Yet the smooth energy is rich of vibrations and automatic noise.
As you think you know where one song is heading, another comes in and throws you completely. Like something of post-punk meeting metal grunge. It’s a complex ability. You almost get confused and excited to understand where it is heading next. If someone turned Alice in Wonderland and made it next level darkness. The fact the album was mixed in a hospital car park, as Patrick waited for his son to be born is a full circle array of emotions. The swirling lyric of, “if I turn away from you, what will I turn into?” holding onto that ability for one person, not letting go and trying to understand what to do next.
To say this album has depth is an understatement. To say it’s emotional would be a poor description on craftsmanship. There really aren’t enough words to describe the power in this album. You’re haunted by the shadows of the past that linger onto Patrick’s vocals. Temper and anger are pressed out in each beat and drum and poetic silence of the harp. With a jungle of pace and guitar solos that push your ears onto each note as you wait for the next line. You really have to listen to the album all in one to really understand what is trying to be executed. And even after, you’re left asking yourself, what did I just listen to?
Go grab yourself a copy of this fantastic album, you won’t regret it that for sure.
Buy the cassette from Sea Records:
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