Another Green World

Alec West is the genius behind the, Memphis, eccentric new wave, shoegaze project Another Green World. He’s yet again created the aesthetic culmination of a John Hughes’ script clashing with the direction of Ridley Scott, circa “Black Rain”.

This short, ambient EP, “Dream Detective” is his latest opus. Radically different from his last full length “Haunted”. This new creation is West’s homage to the 1980s European Synthpop groups who innovated the electronic music genre for decades to come.

Reminiscent of Belgium’s Absolute Body Control and England’s Cabaret Voltaire, this spangling nostalgic EP embraces you with modular harmonics and mixed toned melodies.

“Dream Detective” is an adventurous Synthpop album. The diverse range allows one to become enamored by multiple aesthetics, even though it captures one aesthetic extremely well.

Though West is nostalgic, it’s not an overwhelming feature in his music. “Dream Detective” is a good example of how West incorporates retrospection into his music without dating himself.

The album has fluid transitions and a nicely paced build up. The culmination of each track does forge into the one focal point of the album. Even though each song has its own personal flow on the EP, that doesn’t stifle or confuse the progression.

“Dream Detective” is out now via bandcamp and will be physically released in March on Chameleon Tapes.

10/10

by Nicholas Hodges - Caterwaul Magazine

Another Green World – Dream Detective - Every cool adventure has a cool introduction. Star Wars, Conan the Barbarian, The Dark Crystal… all these movies have no problem telling you you’re in for a kick ass journey. The same goes for Another Green World‘s Dream Detective. If we are to believe the brief narration at the beginning of the first track, we’re going for a ride with a psychic, crime solving ghost and that sounds pretty damn fun, if you ask me.

Alec West definitely has a knack for dreamy ’80s pop and uptempo journeys into the weirder places of the synthwave/synthpop landscape. If I zone out and just exist within the music, I feel like I’m travelling through space with the window down and I’m dragging my fingertips through the Milky Way, or I’m on a motorcycle speeding through an 8-bit simulation of Tokyo.

Dream Detective features distinctive huge snares and pulsating basslines to keep things going at a brisk pace throughout the EP and wobbly, spaced out melodies keep things from being too serious. One thing that really stands out to me that I wish more artists in the genre would do are the vocals on a few of the tracks. Music that is primarily instrumental always has an underlying cold sense of anonymity, but West adds a distinct and human flavor to his music. In certain places I get hints of Neil Tennant; in others I hear Ian Curtis. Indeed, my favorite tracks on this EP feature West’s vocals. The title track, with a different tempo, would definitely be a dreamwave/chillwave song, with its resonating, soft vocals, but the happy ’80s pop sensibilities create a fun juxtaposition. I think that’s a fairly accurate summation of Dream Detective in general. Another Green World takes elements from songs and genres he admires that on their own would fall squarely into one genre or another, but the combination of all of them creates an entirely different creature. If I had any challenges with this release it was only because of my own preconceptions of what it should sound like. After a few listens I began picking up on all these little nuances and flavors of other musicals styles, and the mish mash of poppy sounds with dashes of melancholy creates a really cool hybrid sound. This isn’t a straight up synth wave record, nor should it be. There’s some experimentation here but whereas some experiments either backfire or become inert, Dream Detective is a series of two- to four-minute successes.

That being said, my favorite track overall is the last one, ‘The Dress’. The guitar riffs are strangely reminiscent of ‘Dead Souls’, but given the synth wave treatment. Another Green World has a style all his own and while I am hard pressed to put him squarely into one category, I don’t think doing so is at all necessary. As long as he keeps taking us on kick ass journeys, no categories are necessary…9.0/10 - Violent success

Another Green World: Haunted – Another Green World’s Haunted resembles ’80s pop blended into an ambient tempo. Each synthesized beat is strategically arranged to complement each other and does not fail in providing a sense of serenity. Each track manifests the use of drum machines and synthesizers, alluding to the ’80s pop genre, but Haunted is unique in reinventing this epic era by adding the modernization of electronic music. Each track excellently blends the upbeat tempo of pop with Alec West’s voice, which is soft and near pacifying.

Another Green World consists of Alec West, a Memphis native who began his career in 2007. A year ago today, we reviewed Another Green World’s last EP, In Dreams. Today, Another Green World continues to deliver with Haunted – 12 tracks with their own personality. One track will begin with a soothing tempo, allowing listeners to float into a pleasant state, and will be immediately followed by an energetic pop-infused track that will make you dance (even a little). Haunted was a new world of music that I didn’t think existed. This album delivers in introducing such a creative blend of old and new, and definitely worthy of a listen (or two).

The album begins with ‘Glowing’, an energetic track full of beats that are so recognizable yet distinct. Every track reminds you of a song you’ve heard and it’s so tantalizingly familiar that you listen endlessly until at last, you realize that it’s like nothing you’ve ever heard. The new age beats then reveal a greater appreciation for the genre you thought you had all figured out. Just as ‘Blood’ begins with a deep new wave electronic beat, it immediately enters into a drum machine blazing a marimba-like melody. It’s through excellent transitions that this is accomplished, and it’s a learning experience – music is by no means dormant.

I personally enjoyed ‘Mosaic’. As one of the longest tracks on the album (5:06), it intertwines ambient sounds with subtle drum beats. Together, it undoubtedly drew me in and made five minutes pass far too soon. It is clear that every beat is carefully chosen to complement one another, and this is done fairly well. I enjoyed the twists and turns of each track, introducing so many new sounds and ultimately drawing to question, why are we not doing this more – reinventing older genres? By this, I don’t mean the use of already established music/songs of artists, but examining the genre and its use of instruments to create a new wave movement. Another Green World travels into a new age of electronic music where it’s absolutely appropriate to describe it as new wave retro. How? Haunted creates the “new” out of what we thought was “old,” when really music doesn’t age, it evolves. Alec West shows this in each track, reminding us of this evolution we often ignore. Haunted delivers in providing more than the monotonous mainstream and truly is innovative in its use of electronic beats, ’80s pop, and my favorite, synthesizers… 9.6/10 - Violent Success

Bemused by the 80′s, this 12 track full length album is one of the best releases of June. The songs are like some kind of moving stasis. Metaphorically, a space ship which can move space itself, who is not propelled by fuel and big bangs. Yes, the band makes me think of Futurama. This airy and very synth-oriented record has a great reverb and attains the very hard goal of mid-fi Post-pop. With simple lines that sound as though they were inspired by The Cure, and a German-styled abrasive drumming approach. These humans really pull off sounds like machines, which is the ultimate succession within the underground genre. The scales and note choice is very fresh and helps the listener engage with the album. What I mean is that this album has something to say and we are shown from the beginning that this journey will be worth taking, and we must strap-in and send our senses out towards these musical magicians.

Here is my reaction and review, I will explore the album with all of you, today.

I could do without the one minute tease that is Glowing, Haunted‘s introduction track. I simply don’t get its slow progressions. The amount of silence experienced, before the next track comes in, is too long. It makes my brain wander until I wonder if I should listen to something else.

The first long track, Moment, is musical trickery that really starts the album with a jarring sense of engines starting. The combustion within this track is sudden and the roaring doesn’t seize. The synth line which becomes the backdrop of this track is pushed in front as an intro of nonsensical off-timed melodies. The drums come in at a strange speed to link up the two different musical feels into one solid post-modern Pop track. With guitar similar to The Smith‘s writing, the track really has a lot to offer and has a very tropical feel but is dulled by the rushing waters of Post-rock grandeur.

The third track, Mosaic, has an aquatic electronic edge that most bands seem to fall short in attaining. This song has the production skills of Daft Punk. The chaotic blend of sounds and styles births something authentically synthetic and meets Pop standards. It is becoming clear that this basement modern Pop project is getting serious.

The first song I heard before starting the review was Blood. The track sounds so much like Montreal’s Chevalier Avant Garde‘s previous project, Postcards, which is essentially the same band but with Synths replacing the guitars. It has a Broken Social Scene type of Punk-Indie swagger. With the perfect tempo, this song is radio bound.

The short interlude track, Memory, has a Mark Isham feel with David Torn and Darth Vader drones shooting laser guns at stars. Like a galactic shooting range, the track connects perfectly to one of my favorite tracks so far, When.

When makes me think of how Keane had an amazing first release with Hopes and Fears only to try and make the same album again but with electric instruments instead of the grand Piano. Trying to go synthetic was a huge mistake on their part, but Another Green World have come to teach us how it can be done.

The laid back and more romantic Pop song, Scientific, has the same air as the previous songs but more old school. The vocals are very The Church, Talk Talk, and Can. It’s harder than it sounds to make a spacey track that has essentially been stripped down to bare essentials. This is perfection, guys!

Passion‘s opening tone is a little generic but the guitar with its percussive delay lightly effecting the sound, slowly pulls you in. A bizarre choppy groove encloses the track in a much-needed boundary. As the sounds seems to orbit to the edge and fall back upon itself in a circular motion, I picture a stupid fly trying to fly out a window that is closed.

Forest is a soundtrack motion picture piece that is a tiny break from the fast-paced wave sound.

The album then starts to slow down with Skyscraper, but it still maintains a forward pushing sound. The track has some great drum textures and makes the vocals the real star. The song is stripped down to bare essentials and washes over you with a choral wave in every chorus. It’s a brilliant track which really pleases my morning coffee writing. I really like how nothing really happens in this song, yet it builds a room for me to paint and rearrange the colors within their music. Leaving the listener a role is essential to their return with this kind of non-instrumentally guided music.

The second to last song Geologist sounds like something you have already heard, but in a good way. I don’t think this band really knows how to write a bad track.

The third and last purely atmospheric track, Spectre, closes the album with a chiming thunderstorm. We hear the light of the sun reflecting off rain drops. This is an amazing accomplishment. A musical prism of rainbow deflections going in all directions, until the band is rained out and the sun returns. Oh, how now I will wait for another rainy day. - Fresh Spread

This is a review of the album Haunted (2013), by Another Green World, and the third review here on Track-By-Track.

I don’t remember exactly how I found Another Green World’s music. It might have been that I was searching for Brian Eno's album of the same name, or I might have been just randomly searching for glo-fi bands. Whatever the case, I found the album In Dreams by Another Green World, which turned out to be the first album by Memphis-based solo-artist Alec West.
Haunted marks a slight yet significant change in style for West’s project; a glo-fi/dream pop release, with some acoustic guitars, a more sparse sound, and a lighter equalization. Though at times I miss the old pleasantly-muddled and nearly-stonewalled sound of Another Green World, this solidifies West’s progression towards a kind of high-end production that is at once addictive and more accessible to listeners. Though not every track is catchy, the ones that are, are extremely repeatable. It goes beyond In Dreams, if not as a concept, as a more etherial and genre-defying album.
Here’s my TBT:

“Glowing” is an instrumental intro track. Dream pop synths, and some lo-fi drums make it sound like a portable video-game’s title screen music.

“Moment” is a slight break in style for Another Green World. This time, some acoustic guitars, and surf-style riffs, along with the classic analogue noises and reverb-cushioned vocals that West developed his sound with. It’s upbeat, and placed perfectly as a second track. The lyrics (what I can hear of them) are sweet and dreamy. It’s a chillwave/dream pop combo that’s upbeat from the start. The drums are light, and in that just right addictive equalization, and the ending is filled with a kind of nostalgic analogue atmosphere, only describable if you’ve heard old-school synth modulation, like West’s previous work.

“Mosiac” comes next, with a darker tone more like In Dreams. It feels a little long, but it’s in a very dreamy lo-fi/chillwave genre-rift, and the arcade-game noises are pleasing to the ear. I still prefer the original heavily-compressed version on West’s Vision Quest EP, but it’s great as a sparser alternate version. Synths abounds.

The 4th track, “Blood”, starts with a sound like leftover brostep, and then pleasantly surprises with a totally surf/chillwave pastiche of upbeat acoustic guitars, catchy drums, and insanely catchy digital tones, all in mono (though the streaming version seems to be slightly stereo). The vocals, as we of the shoegaze ilk are used to, are obscured; loads of reverb and delays make the track suitably and lovingly alternative. It’s very Summery, and reminds me of Observer Drift’s Fjords (the first album reviewed here on Track-By-Track). Oddly, what I think is the refrain: “Take my blood”, is in sharp contrast to the happy and optimistic tone of the music. This is the hit on the album, despite the good quality of the whole album.

“Memory” is a short instrumental. It’s something I’ve found mainly with smaller and independent bands, that they still value (and rightly so) the instrumental and experimental songs, as well as the more-traditional ones with words. This song is short enough to remember, and long enough to define somewhere in dream pop or glo-fi (which is what I regard as a slightly less upbeat and muddier chillwave, despite the standard definition which has them as the same sub-genre).

“When” is the 6th track; gladly another Summery dream pop one. The beat is very catchy, and it ends way too soon for my liking. It’s addictive, and sounds like a Spring day, erupting with loads of atmosphere; loads of good ‘80s sounds, and a great ending. The guitars are very slightly shoegazey, and the bass is definite dream pop. It’s that song you hear on the radio in the old days, that you never knew the name of, and never did catch who did it. Extremely etherial.

“Scientific” is a chorus-pedal-driven song, and the beat, as usual with West’s work, draws the listener in immediately. This one could do better with slightly less reverb on the verses’ vocals, but only from a lyrical point of view. They create an atmosphere of uncertainty, within an otherwise grounding, certain, track. It’s unusual for most bands to have reverb almost exclusively on the vocals, which is definitely a plus for anyone (like me) looking for originality.

“Passion” starts off with old-school toms, and the vocals are at the forefront of this one. It, like the rest of the album, is refreshingly non-pitch-corrected. The lyrics are great, especially for a kind of love song, and really work with this style. The chorus could have more elaboration, but it’s definitely a hook. Classic new-wave guitars and synths make it a little nostalgic.

“Forest”, the 9th track, is another instrumental, with more of that chillwave sound. Loads of pitch modulation covered by reverb, or perhaps vice-versa.

“Skyscraper” is slower, and a bit like Nexus Nooka from Another Green World’s earlier Nexus Nooka/Game Genie release. This one has the clearest vocals, and more great textured drums. The guitars make a great shoegaze-ish backing to the track, and when they are at the forefront, it’s like listening to a pool of guitar.

As the penultimate track, “Geologist” is a return to that super-reverb sound. This one sounds a bit like Yung Life (the second album reviewed on this blog). It’s very 80s, and the synths are complimented by more surf-guitar. It’s always refreshing to hear surf done right, and this fast-paced song is in that crossover between old and faux-old, in a good way.

“Spectre” is the final track, oddly a darker instrumental in the glo-fi subgenre. Imagine The Killers, with a dark-ambient producer. It doesn’t quite feel like an end to the album, though it lives up the album’s name, unlike the album’s general optimistic yet otherworldly tone.

Overall, this album has some pretty sweet chillwave/dream pop sounds, and some tracks pleasantly defy categorization in either of these sub-genres. This is an experience in both sparse and textured sounds, and West is well on his way to amassing a new audience, at the same time as keeping older fans satisfied. You can stream this album for free at http://synthrecords.bandcamp.com, and buy it in CD quality at that link; and for older Another Green World releases, you can check out http://anothergreenworld.bandcamp.com. And for the full experience, play some old VHS tapes in the background, on a heavily magnetized tv. - Track by Track