September 2, 2022 - Domino Recording Co.
A teacher once told me that happiness paints only with the color white. I don’t think that’s wholly fair though. Joy is fleeting in this life. It is a fascinating emotion. We all trick ourselves into “searching for happiness” when really all we are actually looking for is a state of comfort. Something else tricked us into thinking that the state of comfort creates better conditions for experiencing joy. I, however, am not so sure this is true. The first time I laughed after getting fired suddenly from a job was the giddiest I had felt in years. A sweet release from the grip of grief. If we have the capacity to feel great fear, sadness, stress, and pain, we have the same capacity for joy.
I’ve been feeling such pessimism lately about the direction technology is taking. I should be happy. I’m a Star Trek fan. The tech sector is building AI for everything right now. It’s so we can embrace that utopian future to come, where our toil won’t have to be meaningless anymore, right? Aren’t they delivering on the promise that everything we do can be meaningful?
Not really. And yet, with a heavy sci-fi heart, I remain a watcher, a waiter, a rosy giver. The human capacity for hope and joy even in the face of darkness is incomprehensible. How can we see the images we see in the pitch dark? How can someone distill this multitude down to a tube of deadly white paint?
UK producer George Fitzgerald’s music has stuck with me over the years because of his ability to conjure such emotional depth with music and his obsession with the bittersweetness of joy. Fitzgerald’s electronic compositions put me into a nostalgic meditation where I can viscerally remember a bit of the optimism I once had. His latest album Stellar Drifting explores euphoric sentimentality as a final frontier, a Shakespearean space drama playing out among the stars in the heavenly dimensions. This is a human looking upward and rendering himself vulnerable to the sublime without fear. He has said he used images of the cosmos to craft this music, literally trusting in the patterns of the stars. The hope for the promise of future is palpable throughout the album, surfing through the currents of twinkling, mesmerizing synths, tumbling percussion, and glittering electronic atmosphere.
I can’t say I’ve heard anything stylistically on Stellar Drifting that sets it far apart from Fitzgerald’s previous work. It is certainly music you would expect from him that fits into his oeuvre, with a few collaborations with indie megaliths SOAK, London Grammar, Ellie Goulding (secretly), and Panda Bear. Ten tracks enter, blow magical lunar dust in your face, then exit stage right like pretty memories. At times, Fitzgerald’s exploration of optimism on Stellar Drifting is awkward, saccharine even. There is a raw abandon and luxuriation that is undeniable though, especially in the most sugary moments. You get the sense that he finds this journey awkward at times too. After all, have you never felt so happy you wanted to destroy something? The feeling of happiness is not as simple as our culture pretends it to be. It is also risky emotional territory for an artist to explore since we are biased to see overt work about great pain as nobler.
The vocals on the tracks seem handled with a lighter touch overall, allowing the flavor of the individual singers to remain strong in the soup of pillowy smooth production. Panda Bear’s sound is unmistakable in the words he sings on ‘Passed Tense,’ a track that hits like a bouncy castle. So is London Grammar’s Hannah Reid with her haunting, broken message revolving and evolving mysteriously through space on ‘The Last Transmission.’ There is more distortion to the vocals on ‘Cold’ and SOAK’s fractured chorus of one on ‘Rainbows and Dreams,’ but they still stay close to an edge, maintaining character, not objectified or melted into hypnotic oblivion.
Not all the tracks have prominent overt vocalists though. Other highlights from Stellar Drifting include the sheer maddening vibes in ‘Setting Sun,’ the subtle babbling baby in ‘Betelgeuse,’ the isolation of a rotating beacon adrift in ‘Retina Flash,’ and the undulating heat of ‘Ultraviolet.’
In the end, I think making music about joy is just really challenging. I’ve certainly watched and reviewed other musicians who stared into the face of astounded ecstasy, got overwhelmed by the light, lost themselves in the sunset, and forgot how to paint. What George Fitzgerald does differently is maintaining his roots in his own signature musical mode while reaching upward for the universe. Like a tree with the best chances for survival, he stands up straight while others lean in one direction, then another, wherever the air smells the sweetest in a moment. Some may criticize Fitzgerald’s method of rooted growth as a lack of rigor, but I think those must question why they believe creatives should reinvent their work entirely all the time, rather than building it up one spurt at a time. A tree’s rings teach us more about history than new branches. To survive, artists have to seek a sustainable way to keep making things.
With an overwhelming burst of steady optimism throughout, George Fitzgerald’s Stellar Drifting will leave you asking, “Why do we make such sad music all the time? Happiness paints the rainbow.” ☔