Second Storey returns to Houndstooth in the form of ‘Lucid Locations’ – a sublime presentation of bass driven, meticulously crafted tracks that again deftly display a balancing act between the delicate and the riotous. Taken from that LP is the lush ‘Offbeat World’, with a hyperrealistic video directed by pro 3D artist, Brendan Bennett.
With Offbeat World I was experimenting with new structural ideas, both from a rhythmic point of view and also in terms of the progression of the track. I think it represents some of my jazz influences and whilst being entirely synthetic, also has quite a live feel. Huge thanks to Brendan Bennett for the amazing video. It’s stunning and think it captures the essence of the music. I love it and hope you do too.
Alec Storey’s new LP was informed not only by his own movements between the Suffolk countryside and London, but by the recurring patterns of displacement taking place in the larger world, the dizzying effects of disorientation and recalibration; these songs are sonically and emotionally complex experiences laden with reflections on exodus and homecoming. While Storey was negotiating his sense of home on a personal level, the U.K. was critically reconsidering its own identity and its rules of hospitality at the same time. And notably, London was in the midst of a purge of the institutions that helped cement its important status as a forerunner of nightlife culture.
It is not all fisticuffs though. Significantly, Storey also has a true penchant for creating music deeply rooted in bass and rhythm that immediately asks the body to respond, all the while subtly working away on the listener with an ulterior motive to coax them into contemplation.
Lucid Locations is available now on Houndstooth
