The Thrill Jockey juggernaut continues to roll forth. This synth-driven release is the eponymous debut of Stygian Stride AKA Jimy SeiTang (Psychic Ills/Rhyton), eschewing tradition rock formations and templates in favour of electronic music that nevertheless adopts the improvisational style he has honed his craft in for such a long period of time. These stylings are further hued by the usage of vintage analog synthesizers. Therefore the atmosphere that cloaks Stygian Stride comes across as a metallic, metronomic heartbeat, the score of a hallucinogenic dystopian desolation that still invokes creeping dread beyond the horrors that already exist on the surface. It isn't all fearful anxiety and despair - the pun 'Fade Into Bolivian' hovers on the edge of inebriatic bliss, an ecstasy of glacial glitch - but SeiTang's insistence on cyclical elongation and distortion of tones within these undulating rhythms means that nothing on these tracks can be taken at face value - for better or worse, you need to allow yourself to be submerged by the bubbling white noise. And like all true classic brainwashings, it won't be long before you are proclaiming, "I love Stygian Stride".
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