Symbol
Online Architecture
Holodeck Records
Street: 04.08
Symbol = Boards of Canada + Mark Bradley + x.y.r
Online Architecture is one of the greatest synth-based records to grace my inbox this year. Christopher Royal King descended from on high from the post-rock pioneers This Will Destroy You to drop this insanely thick and muggy synth tape full of East Asian looped melodies, subdued clouds of pillowy drones and a bevy of east-of-center instrumentation—harmonium, singing bells, hammered dulcimer and tape destruction—on an already packed 2014. The record is a fine collection of shifting morphine passages that lap and wash over speakers like a low-cloud ceiling. Recalling Boards of Canada’s hazy electronics and Mark Bradley’s modulated synth wizardry, Online Architecture is an album with depthless depths, endless starting and stopping points, and when you squint your ears just right, you hear something completely different. –Ryan Hall