Review by AVA LIVERSIDGE
– LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles-based trio Total Blue makes their self-titled debut via Music From Memory records. Composed of long-time collaborators Nicky Benedek, Alex Talan, and Anthony Calonico, Total Blue’s formation marks the group’s renewed commitment to earnest electronica. Their debut LP Total Blue morphs city into sound, distilling this trio’s own Los Angeles into a sonic artifact.
Benedek, Talan, and Calonico describe their 8-track introduction as “a place where the real and the imaginary begin to blur” and “of time and timelessness.” As a lifetime Angeleno, such shamelessly contradictory descriptions resonate with great effect. It is only the slight, liminal space where binaries seem to dissolve that such sprawling acoustics—and cartographies—can be understood. Dubbed wind synthesizer, mallet-driven percussion, and bamboo interludes guide listeners through the slipstreams and byways of total blue.
An underlying utopian ethic drives this project. The majority of the outfit’s verbiage surrounding their approach expresses a longing to escape, but their promised land lies beyond what’s physically available. This longing accounts for the sense of movement felt when listening to LP Total Blue from opener “The Path” through to closer “Pearl Plains.” The record is smooth and without attention-grabbing dynamism. In its place, the trio opts for warbling melodies and timbral embellishments that usher us into a meditative listening state, near trancelike.
Lead single “Corsair” tempts listeners with disco-ish grooves paired with their wind synth’s floating melodies that never quite resolve themselves and a piece-meal rhythm section that won’t quit. It’s a truly effective single, and even better when placed in the context of the whole record.
Check out ‘Total Blue’ here:
