Video Premiere: MSOTT – “Synastry”.

June 23, 2011, 0 comments

Two lovers on a beach, walking along the waterside. Side by side, hand in hand – a romantic scene, obviously, yet still one visually held in rather dark and gloomy colors, and the slow drones and eerie vocals of the piece accompanying the visuals at least could hint at some twisted edges in the picture. What we see here is a audiovisual study about the fundamentals of love: Synastry, we’re being told, “is the branch of astrology that studies relationships by comparing natal horoscopes”.

The song appears on Motion Sickness of Time Travel‘s new full-length Luminaries & Synastry, out today via Tulsa, Oklahoma imprint Digitalis. Despite a pretty impressive discography (alone and with her husband Grant as Quiet Evenings, who recently dropped their first LP Intrepid Trips via their own label Hooker Vision), Rachel Evans’ new album is the official follow-up to her very impressive debut Seeping Through the Veil of the Unconscious, originally put out by Digitalis on tape last year but treated with a vinyl re-release earlier this year.

Although Seeping… already was a fabulous effort, Luminaries & Synastry nonetheless marks a big artistic leap ahead for the LaGrange, Georgia-based artist. In general, the songs are notably shorter on the new album, and all in all there is a noticeable step towards more accessibility, the tracks are mostly based on clearer, more firm structures – most decisively on the album’s strongest and most beautiful track Day Glow, a song that puts Evans in line with other outstanding female experimental pop artists such as Grimes or Grouper – though this doesn’t mean that we’re confronted with a straight pop album here whatsoever. To the contrary, the LP is a very distinctly experimental ambient/drone piece, reconfirming Rachel Evans’ extraordinary talent in both songwriting and soundscaping, and all in all one of the best albums of the year so far.

Luminaries & Synastry is available now directly via Digitalis or (recommended if you’re in Europe) via Boomkat.