For over two decades, electronic musician Mark Pritchard has been producing music through numerous solo and collaborative projects. Now, without any alias, he has released an LP entitled “Under The Sun.” Accompanied by a photo album with landscapes pairing with each song, “Under The Sun” further displays the artistic diversity held by the man behind projects like Link, Troubleman, and Harmonic 33.
“Under The Sun” feels very surreal at many points throughout. Early on, dense harmonic moments found in tracks like “?,” “Give It Your Choir (feat. Bibio)” feel unrestrained by computers or synthesizers. Aside from electronic folk artist Bibio, the album also features collaborations with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, psychedelic folk singer Linda Perhaps, and electronic hip-hop artist Beans. The album’s atmosphere becomes more desolate over time, evolving into something larger than life. “Hi Red” fosters a horrific sense of dissonance reminiscent of sound poet Brion Gysin’s “Pistol Poem.” The stark track “The Blinds Cage (feat. Beans)” continues down this dissonant path, and uses the featured artist’s narrative to work as a beacon amongst the atonal instrumental shrieks. Layered in between these tracks are brief glimpses into other surreal landscapes. Instrumental tracks like “Cycles of 9” and “EMS” work to employ the surreal atmosphere in the style of a movie score. Upon the final approach to the album’s end lies tracks “Dawn Of The North,” “Khufu” and “Rebel Angels.” These tracks continue to expand on Pritchard’s innate ability to create evocative electronic music. “Under The Sun” reaches its final destination with the title track, which draws the previous hour of music to a close with a hypnotic, looping sample.
The tracks on “Under The Sun” have a huge amount of headspace and is best experienced with minimal outside noise. Clocking in at 67 minutes in length, this 16-track LP can be a lot to actively listen to. “I designed this to work as a whole experience, hoping that if people are in the right mood, free from distractions, the music will take you somewhere else,” Pritchard told Warp Records. While this may be true, many parts of “Under The Sun" just don't seem to want to exist on the same album. While a vast majority of the tracks are contemporary and experimental, others like “Infrared” seem to better fit the criteria for Pritchard earlier projects. Despite these details, Pritchard’s “Under The Sun” is a wholly magnificent piece of art.
