Claude Speeed returns to Planet Mu, two years after the 'Sun Czar Temple' EP, with his second album 'Infinity Ultra'. He describes the record he's been creating since he started making computer music as one "conceiving an interior territory: an abstract space to process the oppression, confusion and insanity of the contemporary age; and to formulate an honest emotional and artistic response - a psychic jumping off point into an uncertain future."
'Infinity Ultra' takes inspiration from sleep paralysis, monumental artworks, children's anime, abandoned places, ghostly rave pasts and terrifying silicon valley futures, and the limitless anger of the digital present.
These influences have been channelled into an impressionistic burst of varied creativity: Shimmering VSTs; monolithic noise; euphoric blocks of colourful sound; trance stabs and the citrus rush of hardcore; towering drones, and skynet math rock - all rendered against cold, sinister space and nostalgic synth melodies.
The album reveals the artist's Scottish roots, viewed at a hazy distance from his Berlin home - a series of memories of Glasgow's experimental psychedelic underground, its DIY rock scene and defiant club hedonism.
These genre relationships are blurred and at times they contrast with audible brutality; the result is a hybrid, sculptured way of rendering music - minimal specifics, maximum emotions.
Tracklisting: 2LP: Side A: 1. BCCCC 2. Serra 3. Windows 95 4. Ambien Rave
Side B: 1. Alternate Histories (ft. Kuedo) 2. Moonchord Supermagic 3. 800 Super NYC 4. XY Autostream
Side C: 1. Fifth Fortress 2. VZJD 3. Entering The Zone 4. Center Tech
Side D: 1. Spirits 2. Contact 3. Dreamdream
CD: 01. BCCCC 02. Serra 03. Windows 95 04. Ambien Rave 05. Alternate Histories (ft. Kuedo) 06. Moonchord Supermagic 07. 800 Super NYC 08. XY Autostream 09. Fifth Fortress 10. VZJD 11. Entering The Zone 12. Center Tech 13. Spirits 14. Contact 15. Dreamdream
