Like Bruce Soord, whose third solo album we reviewed earlier this month, Riverside frontman Mariusz Duda is a restlessly creative spirit, known also for Lunatic Soul and his solo work. Fascinated by the possibilities of conceptual frameworks for his music, and open to a wide range of genres in his pursuit of telling a story, Duda returns with AFR AI D. His fourth solo album, it is an ambient work that tackles the emergence (and potential threat) of AI, not with outright condemnation, but by posing questions as to what the future may hold. As such, it is an open-ended piece that addresses concerns in a manner best described as cautiously optimistic.
Not that the music always indicates such optimism. The opening track, a seven-plus-minute piece entitled Taming Nightmares, emerges from eerie sounds and swirling pads to achieve a similar sense of cinematic dread to Trent Reznor’s work with Atticus Ross on the Gone Girl soundtrack. With elements of Mike Oldfield in its arpeggiated leads, and huge, throbbing swathes of bass, it’s an ever-evolving track, that nods to both Harold Faltermeyer and Grimes as it progresses, the eighties-style percussion and semi-coherent vocals adding to the sense that this is a unique work drawing from a range of influences so wide, that it’s almost impossible to pin down. In keeping with its title of Good Morning Fearmongering, the second track is based around a dark, stabbing bass line and skeletal, trip hop production. It harks back to the mid-90s where acts like Orbital, Leftfield, the Orb, and Underworld established electronic music’s album-length potential, and it’s exciting to hear a major progressive artist exploring alternative realms with such depth and detail. Next up. Fake Me Deep, Murf is lighter of touch, drifting into post-progressive territories, while allowing the guitar freer rein to drift across the surface. With its skittering breakbeats, it’s a fascinating piece, kept tightly in check for a sub-five-minute runtime that leaves the listener wanting more. The first half concludes with the whimsically titled Bots’ Party, a twitchy but rather fun piece, led by piano and driven by an ascending bass line that adds to the slightly eccentric air the track exudes. It reaches a peak with some sweet, and somewhat unexpected, lead guitar from Mateusz Owczarek; rounding out the first side in fine progressive style.
Opening the second side, I Love To Chat With You is a short, sweet piece with synth choirs, vocoder vocals, and a rippling arpeggio submerging the listener in a warm ambient bath. It’s followed by the darker Why So Serious, Cassandra? Another track that harks back to Orbital’s seminal In Sides album, it’s a near perfect slice of ambient techno, with eerie effects hurtling across the electronic soundscapes to create something truly hypnotic and subtly unnerving. In contrast, the short, stabby Mid Journey To Freedom is a gentle palette cleanser, paving the way for lengthy album closer Embracing The Unknown. Opening on a poignant note, closer to Riverside than anything else found here, it takes in Mateusz’s Gilmour-esque lead, before the track heads down a dark path that runs through fields of trip hop and ambient techno, essentially gathering the best threads from across the album to emerge as an ambitious, forward-thinking finale to an endlessly engaging album.
Fans of rock music have an unfortunate tendency to dismiss electronic music out of hand, despite the close ties that exist between the worlds of ambient, techno, house, and prog. It is their loss for, as this album shows, electronic music can be every but as evocative as a full band release. For AFR AI D, Marisuz Duda looks to the mid-90s for inspiration, drawing on the likes of Leftism, In Sides, Dubnobasswithmyheadman, and UFORB, while adding in progressive flourishes and even hints of the soundtrack work undertaken by industrial pioneer Trent Reznor. The results are astonishing – a strangely timeless album that absorbs the listener and evokes a range of emotions over the course of its forty-minute runtime. A spectacular digression from an eclectic artist, AFR AI D comfortably ranks among Mariusz Duda’s best work, solo or otherwise, and is well worth exploring. 9/10
