tttc - Sum/mer/cury

Released: June 27

This new album from tttc is a bit of a departure from his last album. Where the previous one was a lot of weird experimentation, this one is also some weird experimentation but on chill mode. Throughout the album, its all so calm and spacey with lots of interesting watery tones. The first track, "Outer Signals" leans heavily on the watery and warbley, giving a vibe like you're just floating through the ether as unusual colors pass you by. Which brings me to another neat point about this album: it just feels colorful and playful. Nothing too serious or anything that seems to try a little too hard, just lots of fun tones and free-form compositions that seemingly go along as they please. 

The third track really leans into this playful feeling with a single small organ playing out long notes and this extremely bouncy and happy bit of melodic percussion playing out something that feels vaguely like an island resort of some kind just bouncing along to bring good vibes. This one is probably one of my favorite tracks on the album due to the unexpectedly joyous tone that I can't help but feel a vague cartoon-y association with. Even though the vibe for most of the album is chilled out, tttc still finds a moment later in the album with "Satellite" in which the weirdness goes up and the chill goes down. The individual sounds aren't dark or anything, in fact they're right in line with the light-hearted tones we've heard this whole time. But they way they jam together into a big mess of avant-garde jazz with a smile is a neat little contrast to the less hectic pieces on the album. 

The last bright piece we get is "pods of the mothership," which is another one of my favorites here simply because it feels very Super Mario-esque with its little plucked synths and a toy organ that play out a gentle and simple melody. This last little cutesy moment come right before the final two tracks, "A Mercurian Pie" and "Mercury Queen." The former takes a lot of the themes established in the album and re-fits them into a darker and less upbeat mode while the latter takes a broom and dustpan to all those themes and sweeps away and into a big pile of drones and atmospheric sweeps.