Selling

‘On reflection’ is a conscious coupling between Gold Panda’s Derwin Dicker and Simian Mobile Disco’s Jas Shaw who together proffer this cornucopia of ‘terra-fractal’, ‘post-housequake’, ‘electrobo-groovin’, however you want to term it.

There’s a recurrent theme of image, the un/reality of the reflection, the representation the eye sees that may be at odds with the returning gaze. French critical theorist Roland Barthes wrote ‘You are the only one who can never see yourself except as an image ... you are condemned to the repertoire of its (your eyes) images’.

This illusory deception of the self is perfectly encapsulated on the diptych of ‘No reflection’ and the Yellow Magic Orchestra evoking ‘Mirror can only lie’: the former a nursery time (without rhyme) of the moment of attempted recognition the latter the realisation that what you see isn’t what you ‘be’. Deceived by that which you perceive: it could be argued (by me) that it’s a critique on the ‘selfie-screen-sharing-subject-object’ nexus.

Fractured lights emitted from the spinning mirrorball informs opener ‘Qprism’; chamber-pop-baroque, a creeping, crawling, rung-scaling ambience. ‘Dicker’s dream’ is an insomniac’s desire, brain food for a mellow mood. The far-off alien slang-uage is a receiver-transmitting ‘Phone call from the future’ a time-travelling beam back, a dream up call and response. An East Asian proverb inspires ‘Moon in water’ another piece that again reiterates the fallibility of ‘sight beyond tactility’, the unreliability of what’s seen, just a mirage.

Think of this as Aldous Huxley’s soma for the soul’s ears, an array of disconnective fissures of defective tissues that as a whole, equal: BLISS.