Bleep

Further exploring the sonic worlds he first encountered on his 2016 opus Under The Sun, Mark Pritchard delves deeper into moody and magical states of mind on The Four Worlds.

The Four Worlds are split across the different terrains of sound mapped out by Mark, and visualised by Jonathan Zawada (a close and constant collaborator since 2013) with hyperphysical imagery that matches the album’s moments of both wonder and unease. From the hushed alien landscape of ‘Parkstone Melody II’, its deserted land only punctured by the piano keys that fall through the mist throughout, to the cold shiver, eyes wide glare of ‘Come Let Us’ with Gregory Whitehead’s incredibly vivid, speaksung hymnal vocals gradually torn apart in hyperventilating glitchy cuts over mystifying and brassy dark ambience, each world slowly begins to reveal itself as a sort of modern classical meditation, with moments of clarity drifting in and out.

‘Glasspops’ begins the album by sifting through this sonic sediment, unfolding its toothy synthesis in the album’s sole yet subtle four to the floor cut, digging up the arrangements of glittering harpsichord like trills and solemn Rhodes to come. Yet eventually these worlds are revealed as places where the inhabitants are looking outward, not in, most evident on the record’s most cherished piece with The Space Lady emitting a softly spoken S.O.S. signal, a kind of apocalyptic obituary evolving into an outer space organ powered dialogue with other beings, a plea for help that we imagine many have reached out to embrace time and time again.