Dream Colour

Richard Norris and Martin Dubka's Circle Sky album has finally seen the light of day, three years on from the release of If I Let Go and Ghost In The Machine, a pair of singles that married their analogue synths with a weirdly almost human voice, some beautiful, light than air melodies and a sense of melancholy. The album, Dream Colour, has that feeling of a future that has been lost, the promise and hope of the 21st century as it looked a few decades ago that hasn't materialised- a future/ present weighed down by environmental collapse, terrorism, fractured societies, loneliness and isolation, plague and technology that presents as many problems as solutions. Somehow though, there's a sense that things might just be ok. 

The title track has the bassline and bounce of 80s house with that female voice singing vague somethings. The voice isn't quite human and isn't quite robotic either- how they've created her/ it, they're not saying. 

Salvation is altogether less physical and more ethereal, floatier, with twinkling synthlines and warm pads, a drifting, gliding piece of electronic music. The album has a cocoon- like feel, something to bathe in while the outside world carries on. There's something of the future of Blade Runner in Dream Colour too, replicants with human emotions that they don't understand yet. I think its an album I'll be coming back to often. 

 

Holding On

Back in 2018 Circle Sky, the sleek electronic/ sci fi techno vehicle for Richard Norris and Martin Dubka to explore their futuristic dreams, released a single called Ghost In The Machine. It was and is a favourite of mine, tinkling piano at the top end, synth stabs, subtle, pulsing drums, a spectral voice and lots of beautiful repetition- repetition of melodies, of rhythms and vocals. 

Circle Sky also released If I Let Go in the same year and in 2019 Love Hertz, both with some sumptuous remixes from the likes of Ulrich Schnauss, Crooked Man and Michael Mayer. 

Now, as part of Richard Norris' seemingly endless productivity drive in 2020- 2021 and his Inner Mind subscription service we have a new Circle Sky release, Holding On. Similar building blocks, all those elements present- repetition, sweetly sung vocal loops, pitter- pattering drums, bright synth melodies and retro- futurist, happy/ sad, euphoric/ melancholic sheen. The album, titled Dream Colour (a title which sums Circle Sky up perfectly), is out in the summer. 

Love Hertz

Out yesterday, the latest from Circle Sky (Richard Norris and Martin Dubka). The two singles they released last year- If I Let Go and Ghost In The Machine- were among my favourites of 2018. This new one looks set to join them and an album is due this year too. Love Hertz is hypnotic, waves of gentle, pitch bending synths, a pulsebeat and synthetic, mildly euphoric vocals from Iris.

Reading My Mind

Jeez- the previous Circle Sky single (If I Let Go) was a good one, a real 2018 highlight, but they've now given us this one as a follow up. A sublime piece of subtle, emotive, electronic music that reveals a little more each time you click play.

Feels Like Falling

The first days after the clocks go back always remind me how much I loathe travelling home from work in the dark- and this is just the start of it, there's another six months to go. Grim. So I'll take some snatches and glimpses of light where I can find it. I wrote recently about the new single from Circle Sky (a Richard Norris project), a beautiful low key ambient techno song I eloquently described as 'rather fucking gorgeous'.

The 12" is out imminently with two remixes, one from Ulrich Schnauss who strips it back and finds some little repeating melodies which he sets off against some washes of sound. Eventually a lazy drumbeat joins in. Half way through the vocal comes in, smothered in echo, and everything speeds up a little. Then it slows down and fades. Lovely.



The 12" also has this more insistent remix from Michael Mayer, a more austere techno reworking but the softness of the original track remains.

If I Let Go

Too insistent to be ambient (and the bpm count's too high) but pretty dreamy all the same- this is brand new from Circle Sky (a Richard Norris analogue modular synth project). This is low key and rather fucking gorgeous. That's my review.

Beyond

Drew and I agreed on Twitter the other night that Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve's own re-animation of their recent single Diagram Girl is a thing of beauty, one of those records that sounds like summer should. Six and a half minutes of wobbly bass, washes of synth, blissed out vox and hazy modern dance-oriented psychedelia. Just wonderful stuff from Richard Norris and Erol Alkan with an album to follow.



If you like that you should go find Richard Norris' other current project, Circle Sky (a duo with Martin Dubka), and a 12" called Reveal/Interstellar, two massive sounding cuts recorded live using the Moog System 55 modular- analogue acid house achieving lift off for 2016. Annoyingly there don't seem to be any full length listens anywhere but these two preview clips give you enough to be going on with.