What do you get when Tim Alexander (on percussion) of Primus and Skerik (on saxophones and synths) of Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade have a jam session one night and later invite bassist and synth-player Timm Mason from Wolves in the Throne Room to the party? You get something that sounds like Neu! mixed with Aphex Twin. You get Sound Cipher.
Their debut album, All That Syncs Must Diverge, is a wild mix of electronica, pulsing beats, saxophone skronks, and glitchy android synths. “Grind Incursion” is the sound of panic in a robot disco. “Ransomwar” reminds you of faraway desert oasis fires and beautiful dancing maidens…and all of it is a slightly unnerving hologram. The way Alexander’s percussion drifts into “Church Turing” and slowly takes over the song like dusk turning to night is a cool effect.
“Permissive Action Link” starts the second half of the album with bad-ass synth bass and growling percussion that will inspire you to throw on a black faux-leather coat and ride a futuristic motorcycle fitted with flame throwers and rockets into a post-nuclear war wasteland in order to rescue someone lovely from a band of mutants. “God Mode” is the song that plays when that quest takes a strange turn after you accidentally fall into a missile silo that’s now used as an underground temple for a strange cult that worships the AI computer that started the war. The song rolls straight into “Entropy Pool,” threatening to pull you down into an even deeper abyss, but showing you a way out of it: a pulsing light in the distance and the sounds of tribal drumming and smoky saxophone reminding you of the lovely companion you came here to rescue. It won’t be an easy climb out of the old missile silo, but it can be done. It must be done.
So, yeah, All That Syncs Must Diverge is pretty much the soundtrack to a cool 1980s European post-apocalyptic / future dystopia film you found one night while scrolling through a weird Roku channel. I hope this project isn’t just a one-off thing. I’d love to hear more from them.
Keep your mind open.
[Don’t diverge from subscribing.]
[Thanks to Kevin at Royal Potato Family.]
