Mercurial lounge synther Martin Glass returns for the first time since his wildly successful 2017 LP, 'Pacific Visions'.
On '21 Commissions', Martin pivots his attention from lilos and cocktails to a world of psychedelic corporate miniatures, customer hold music, and even office soundtrack design.
What remains is Martin's finely tuned ear for texture and melody, each vignette bristling with tiny hooks and an umami-like topography that will keep you returning again, and again...
?
Mercury inside the bubble, Martin's output for brand and business remains prodigious to the point of cynicism.
Seldom longer than 90 seconds, these corporate miniatures were made entirely to order, and at near industrial scale. Their purposes range from sonic ID (Cato, Krutch), through to customer hold music (Skytrack, Canute) and even office soundtrack design (Infinite Auden, Floem). More extended efforts tend to be ambitious, often rejected commissions for company events and / or specific executives (Tangerine, Milo).
As such, this collection - assembled from a cast list of several hundred career commissions - is a puzzling picture of miscellany. At times Glass appears to grapple directly with a clear client brief (Vox Proxima, Now Industries), while at others his own sonic wanderings seem to overpower any immediate professional objective (Ruffle, Dickens).
As evanescent as the audio itself, only a handful of these businesses remain alive today, the brave futures they once promised now faded from sight...