Changes is an album that synthesizes the past and present of electronic music seamlessly as part of a cohesive, vibrant whole. Joe McBride, aka Synkro, has cited a diversity of artists —Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Burial and Oneohtrix Point Never, to name but a few — as musical inspirations on Changes, but the album doesn't blend genres or influences so much as it serves as a bridge that traverses where electronic music has been and where it may go.
"Body Close" features murky, rumbling beats and a soulful vocal, but the track's atmosphere conjures more of a swirling, new age ambience than the a the foreboding, ominous one that would undoubtedly be part of the track if it was straight-up garage. There's a shifting sense of calm ethereality on Changes, whether on the beatless, ambient opener "Overture," or the breathy vocals and sparse tumbling beats of "Shoreline."
McBride seems to aspire here to dismantling the border between the past and present by interweaving elements from both. With Changes, Synkro has delivered an album that is sonically rich and layered, one that succeeds in its lofty ambition to, as McBride explained, "take knowledge from the past and use it to change the future."
(Apollo)"Body Close" features murky, rumbling beats and a soulful vocal, but the track's atmosphere conjures more of a swirling, new age ambience than the a the foreboding, ominous one that would undoubtedly be part of the track if it was straight-up garage. There's a shifting sense of calm ethereality on Changes, whether on the beatless, ambient opener "Overture," or the breathy vocals and sparse tumbling beats of "Shoreline."
McBride seems to aspire here to dismantling the border between the past and present by interweaving elements from both. With Changes, Synkro has delivered an album that is sonically rich and layered, one that succeeds in its lofty ambition to, as McBride explained, "take knowledge from the past and use it to change the future."