tomorrow syndicate

The much eagerly anticipated ‘official’ full length debut from Scottish space probers Tomorrow Syndicate. I don’t mind saying that this has been a long time coming, for me personally its been akin to meeting my former self as a child whilst I patiently counted down the days to Christmas. Debut you say, and I hear you, but pardon me didn’t they release a limited video cassette type thing a little while back, was that not their debut then, well yes and no, it was more a work in progress tying up and along the way showcasing their video making skills (of course all the while backdropped with their purring astral groove). ‘Future Tense’ appears via the irrefutably cool Polytechnic Youth sound house, as ever limited to just 300 copies (all of which these days have the habit of flying out before you’ve barely had a chance to draw breath). Comprised of twelve (including four linking interludes all of which I’d love to hear expanded especially ‘impulse’ and ‘gravity wave’) distant star fused memories (perhaps galactic call signs) sent forth from a forgotten outpost at the edge of the cosmic outlands, it’s a point that’s brought into sharp clarity by the fact that ‘Future Tense’ is teased in both optimism and melancholy. The former embracing the unknown, pushing the frontiers of space travel and the understanding of the universe, the latter crushed at the prospect of a one-way trip with no means or hope of returning home, in effect making these twelve salvos the equivalent of cosmic messages in a bottle. The sounds of course, are sublime, for Tomorrow Syndicate reveal an adept craft for the harvesting and honing of a kosmische vintage whilst piloting upon an axis that brings it into alignment / configuration with the likes of Wire, La Dusseldorf (most notably on ‘lifeforce’ as it sveltely shifts through the gears free-falling amid spiralling swathes of bliss toning vapour kisses all the time emitting a radiant spray of pulsing arc lights into the darkening voids) , Astronauts (see the lunar love note that is ‘dark matter’ – by some distance the best thing here given its cut to a demurring pop pulsar classicism), a youthful Eat Lights Become Lights and Fuxa whilst simultaneously emitting on frequencies that engage a stream lined crystalline sound palette that manages to sound at once – yesterday, today and tomorrow. Amid these cruise-controlled grooves familiar intermissions re-engage contact with previous PY happenings – ‘altered state’, ‘okulomotor’, and ‘into the void’ peppering the track listing with the latter mentioned still the cause of smitten ripples in the gaff – of which we’ll briefly say, is a nifty spot of fondly nostalgic lunar psychedelia dappled in 70’s woozy. And while we might have already crowned ‘dark matter’ as the albums best moment, the affection stakes are tested by the closing slow burn seduction of ‘a glitch in time’ which possessed of a quietly epic phrasing, manoeuvres with majestic finesse and stealth snaking to a string swathed spell charming astral arabesque.