最新发行 | Alpine Decline《来自遥远未来的地下金曲： I-IV》| 巡演11月21日启程

Alpine Decline has been honing their unique brand of dystopian psych rock for nearly 15 years. From the ashes of aughts LA indie darlings Mezzanine Owls, the two piece featuring Jonathan Zeitlin on vocals and Pauline Mu on drums exploded onto the scene with three albums in one year and then promptly packed their bags and moved to China. There they fell into the no wave tinged underground scene and were promptly signed to the iconic Maybe Mars Records. After re-transplanting back in LA in 2016, the band released several more albums bouncing between Paisley Underground jangle and modular synth abstraction.

Their new album Underground Hits from the Far Out Distant Future, Vol. I-IV pulls the listener through all shades of the band's sound in a unique four part journey, with each volume featuring three songs and recorded in a different studio with a different producer and a shifting lineup of musicians. Each volume takes up a theme – Science-Fiction, Fantasy, Romance, and Horror – employing sound design to shape their miniature stories. “We’ve always been interested in what element of ourselves is the through-line when we shift the aesthetic, and wanted to put that journey together in a single album. We’ve embraced our identity as a niche, underground band, and we were having fun with the concept that this album was made up of singles that would be discovered under the rubble by distant future people or aliens.”

Volume I: Science-Fiction kicks us off with a rush of exuberance, featuring a full 6-piece band recorded live-to-tape at Palomino Sounds with Jason Soda (Howlin’ Rain, GospelbeacH). Loosely based on the story of star-travelers stranded on a primitive planet, the songs sink deep melodic hooks into a bright indie-rock shimmer. “Seems like I still have a long way to fly / Have I ever really grown? Have I ever tried?” asks Zeitlin on the standout track “Be There Soon”, pondering his place in the universe over a bed of galloping percussion, watery guitars, and glittering electric piano.

Volume II: Fantasy veers dramatically in a different direction. The duo set up shop in LA’s premiere DIY venue Non Plus Ultra and partnered with Spooky Tavi (HOTT MT, Vinyl Williams), eschewing rock ‘n roll for dreamy electronic bliss. The three songs tell disjointed escape fantasies, each with something dangerous lurking in the periphery. The duo trade vocals on “Onion Valley”, with its soaring chorus wrapped in electronic drums and synths approximating singing birds and wind rushing down the mountains – a track that feels like it was written to be a pop hit for robots dreaming of being human.

For Volume III: Romance, the band reunited with former bandmate Dan Horne (Circles Around the Sun, Cass McCombs) in his Lone Palm Studios, where they recorded their debut album back in 2010. The songs paint warm pictures with spare, simple phrasing (“Sunlight filtered by the trees / Rippled by the breeze / Freckling the wall”), blending their psych sensibilities with the cosmic-Americana Horne has become known for. The warm pedal-steel inflected “If It Could Be That Way” rubs shoulders with the Stooges-esque “What Do You Want to Say”, bringing us back to earth from the electronics-in-space atmospheres of Volume II.

The unsettled feeling that was kept at bay through the first three parts of the record collapse into the foreground on Volume IV: Horror. Recorded by Timothy Waldner (Celebrators) at House of Tomothy – a studio that has quickly become an anchor for LA art-punk bands like The Freakies and Rearranged Face – Alpine Decline peels back the noise for a stark and stunning conclusion to the album. The ghosts have come out of the shadows, with Zeitlin launching us into the darkness singing, “I remember the day we swore / We’d go to the edge but no more,” in his unique, threadbare voice on “The Wreckage”. On “You’ve Got That Light in Your Eyes” we’re plunged into an epic swirl of noise the likes of which the band hasn’t summoned since their smog-choked days in Beijing, before the album releases its grip on the mournful final track “Gone So Long”.

Taken together, the four parts of Underground Hits from the Far Out Distant Future, Vol. I-IV is a trip through different sonic and lyrical terrain, but the through-line is revealed: deeply infectious melodies, carefully constructed storytelling, and a sense of playfulness and joy wrapped keeping the darkness at bay.