Review: ‘Occult Electric’ by Sound Strider

Take a few deep, cleansing breaths, let your mind go free and do its own thing, then and only then will you truly be ready for the rollercoaster ride of tempos, beats and vibrations as the sounds, words and nuances envelop you, taking you places you could only imagine in the deepest recesses of your mind. Luckily for you, the album’s curators were able to mine this gray area and bring it to vivid, breathing color. “Nothing is true, everything is permitted” aptly describes the everything-including-the-kitchen-sink, out-of-the-worldly, yet solidly grounded sound of “Occult Electric” by soundscape scupturist, Sound Strider.

Chaotic is the name of the game as each track builds off the previous one and taps into unexplored, oft-ignored regions of the musical universe with bold, funky beats, heavy synthesizer riffs, mystifying, hypnotic spoken word and varying experimental instrumentation. “Helpless Cogs” starts off the playlist and quickly delves into the listener’s primal energy centers to set the tone for the energy, magic and mystery that the album is about to unleash, layer by layer.

As stated in its press release, “Occult Electric” is described as “probing the fertile crossroads of occult ritual and electronic music, veteran experimentalist Sound Strider dives deep into the liminal spaces of 21^st century electronica in search of new forms.” “New forms” of electronica are only the tip of the iceberg as this album is as inventive as it is textbook electronic.

If you think this album is going to follow an electronic formula, forget everything you thought you knew. Think of a blank slate that is painted with pure imagination, then flipped, stretched, blended, mixed and contorted until you get a sound is indoctrinated with familiar remnants but in a shape that’s recognizable yet engaging, and, that’s how Sound Strider is able to achieve “supernatural soundscapes sampled from the wild frontier.”

This wild frontier becomes “rhythmically complex and texturally intricate, these sinuous electric emanations stir primal forces.” Listen to what you hear and even listen to what you don’t hear to understand the elegant complexity of the tracks, which is at the essence of Sound Strider who has continuously been at the forefront of conjuring up the outlandish and the daring to send the listener on a psychedelic, trance-like trip.

Released on the newly-founded Red Tent Records, “Occult Electric” is the daring album that’s not meant for the mainstream, but the underground devotees of the supernatural that sets out to bridge the divide between man and machine, soul and matter and acoustic and electronic. Take a listen…if you dare.