Odyssey of Noise Vol. IV by Occams Laser

 

Occams Laser is a musical project led by Tom Stuart, based in the UK. 

As an experienced musician, sound designer and a producer he has been making music for quite some time, releasing both his solo albums, doing commissions and everything else in between.

This part of the Odyssey of Noise is the fourth in series, hopefully not the last one. The linearity and singularity of Tom's mindset as a musician, a conscious creative artist and his vision comes into one on this album. One important aspect of his body of work is that his integrity as an artist as well as perseverance, being true to his own inspirations, not to mention being an auto-didact musician only add up to the fragrance, style and maturity of this album. 

The 11 tracks that make up this set are ideally timed and their narrative as a whole collection and individual tracks are stretched enough to make it interesting both as a soundtrack or a conscious choice of listening to it as a whole album which these days, as we know it, is quite rare. 

It’s a block of eleven tracks that are shaped up nicely together and each track is an integral piece of the whole puzzle. There are no unnecessary stopovers or idleness. The mix of synthwave, cyber punk aggressive textures and EBM is genuinely interesting and entertaining. It sounds both fresh and has not even a minute where your mind wanders off questioning the musician’s tone or choice of beats or from a producer’s point of view issues such as compression, mastering or using specific synth palette. Tom knows his craft very well, he can engage the listener and keep your mind occupied

To me – one of the most important aspects of the whole material but also what Tom does in his own world musically is the balance and erudition – he assembled so many pieces together in one album that makes you want to dig through the rest of the shelves of his library. Which makes you think that we are dealing here with a genuine, gifted musician who wants to both attract the potential listener but also not to maim her/him with empty promises. 

It’s a high end shelf of illustrative music that has the softness and flexibility of all things cyber and synth but at the same time it is so dynamic, and aggressive in an illustrious, tight and groove-oriented  way that it’s simply a bad decision to miss it.

Excellent soundtrack for anything that takes you out there and appreciates something both sophisticated and direct…

Bandcamp Link