January 27, 2023 - Nous'klaer Audio
Sometimes when a choir warms up to sing, that action contains more pregnant energy than the performance itself. A euphoria that is overlooked and underrated. Let's return to the lizard bird brain and follow our noses to the light.
Oceanic’s Choral Feeling is a hefty pile of eclectic happy-go-lucky synth dance music that, in lieu of traditional lyrical poetry, explores human mouth sounds as instrumental features. An album of few legible words, you’re more likely to hear someone dribbling their lips with their fingers or gutterally groaning tones up and down like a yo-yo. Think choir warmups as an experimental electronic album you can pogo to.
There is innocence to the composition on these tracks, a playful unbridled quality that I find impressive in these times they tell us are dark so they can feast upon our psyches. It is all just a little silly in an endearing way that makes you chuckle despite your achy heart in all its caustic cynicism. Listening is like watching a bird learn a new sound for the first time and repeat it over and over again, in all the ways it can muster, enjoying the experience, a potent generation of a new mode of expression.
Choral Feeling is the making of music for the joy of it, and joy is a difficult expression to get right. This music bounces, luxuriates in repetition, and contrasts the round softness of the human mouth with rumbling drumbeats and tinny digital synthetic instruments. They punctuate, poke holes in the pillows, toss plumes up into the air, puree the mash, and heighten the performance of the unnamed choir.
The energy is high and manic throughout the album, though there are moments in its second half with a more subdued, reflective quality to the shiny celebratory air. I like these moments best. I drank too much orange juice once, and do not intend to again. It was the worst stomach ache of my life.
My favorite tracks include the moaning wild ride ‘Wren’s Joy,’ the beats bathtub club ‘KxT,’ the syncopated sunshine chords of ‘Open Them Open,’ the staccato vocal cacophony ‘C-Loli,’ and the so-pretty-it-hurts plunking and rotating harmonious ahs of ‘What Comes Next?’
As a whole, Choral Feeling shines in all the colors of the electromagnetic spectrum. But that’s okay because we all look great in the pure white light. ☔