Jeff Surak - Fully Automated Luxury Improvisation

 Released: December 1

This latest album from Berlin-based Jeff Surak is a skittering, jumping, glitching, and errant mess of music in the best possible way. He himself labels it something of a “pop” album, which is technically true though it takes many liberties with such a label. The melodies are there, the repeating hooks are also there, and there’s even a bit of the rhythmic elements and some vocals. But everything is intentionally out of place as rhythms devolve into clicks and chatters while the sparse vocal elements come about erratically and in a broken manner. It’s a beautiful little mess that draws you into its madness slowly at first, then all at once. 

Some of the highlights of the album include the opening track, which starts out with an airy and dark atmosphere that gradually gives way to a pulsing beat that slows down and speeds up at its own leisure, often giving a rather ominous tone as random noises begin to sprout up and morph into one another. Quite appropriate to name this on “Fitted for Chaos.” The track immediately following this skitter-y introduction  give us the clearest pop influences with a disquieting and disjointed vocal and a bass line that feels club pop if heard through the lens of a rather unpleasant amount of Benadryl. There’s plenty of other instances to be found throughout, though some are a little more subdued such as the more ambient leaning “Tendency to Bleed” which leaning into more languid and seething soundscapes as well as the similarly seething finale “Everturning Shadows”

Fully Automated Luxury Improvisation is a rather intriguing album simply because it manages to thread a typically difficult needle. That is, it is able to be a noisy and jittery mess that is also somehow quite accessible and engaging. It doesn’t spend to much time trying to be incredibly esoteric in its construction. Instead, it takes these difficult pieces and weaves them together into repeating motifs that give listeners something to latch onto without feeling trite.