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EXCLUSIVE VIDEO PREMIERE: Watch Out For Pyrit’s UFO

For the second premiere of the day, we have something weird from you. Pyrit is a one man band from Switzerland straddling the borders of electronica, post rock, art rock

7 years ago

For the second premiere of the day, we have something weird from you. Pyrit is a one man band from Switzerland straddling the borders of electronica, post rock, art rock and more. More importantly, the project’s most recent offering, UFO, is an intriguing work of personal expression, atmosphere and musical execution. It weaves between all the influences mentioned above and more but manages to somehow maintain a cohesive, dark, unsettling and down right weird vibe. That’s probably assisted by one of the more subtly distressing/calming lyrical videos we’ve seen: footage of a somber shore taken by the artist himself, accompanied by old machine code font lyrics for the tracks. Yeah. Just…head on down below to check it out.

So, this is essentially also a full album stream (although the album has been out for a while now). What can we say about UFO? The immediate comparison is, of course, Steven Wilson, mostly the first albums from Porcupine Tree. That same post-crash, faintly depressing air is very much present on UFO. Check out the track coupling of “Free” and “Time For Wind”. The first is slightly more upbeat without ever quite breaking the barrier to “happy”, while the latter makes good on its promise by diving deeper into the industrially oppressive soundscapes. Right after “Time For Wind”, “Heroes / Everything” dives right into the darkwave influences and present a harrowing, electronic cycle into further darkness, with rich and towering synth tones dominating the soundscape.

That pretty much encapsulates the album, and the artwork, in one go. You won’t find the scorching melancholy of atmospheric black metal or the soaring angst of progressive metal here. But you will find a whispering dread, a muted sense of the end of the world/self. You’ll also find a great post rock/art rock album, not afraid to indulge in its own ideas and quirkiness but also not willing to sacrifice musical communication for the gimmicky or the needlessly obtuse. Oh, and it was recorded in a parking lot. Did we mention that?

You can head on over to the artist’s Bandcamp to purchase UFO or right to the label, Robotic Empire. We highly recommend giving it a try. Preferably on a cold, winter day.

Eden Kupermintz

Published 7 years ago