Review: Mind Lotion’s Altitude Attitudes

It’s fair to say that Antinote reference the past a fair bit. The music, the record sleeves, the concepts behind it all – each release can be viewed through a prism of retrospect.

Listen to any of D.K.’s releases on the imprint and be instantly transported to Miami in late eighties; drop a needle on Nico Motte’s ‘Life Goes On If You Are Lucky’, and find a fresh approach to the emotive synth work used in late-seventies French film.

But these aren’t carbon copies of old records by any means – these sounds nod approvingly towards previous eras in a entirely modern way. This is worth considering when listening to Mind Lotion’s ‘Altitude Attitudes’ – a release so simultaneously cutting-edge yet warmly familiar. Written as a musical travel log documenting trips to exotic regions, this collection of cleverly crafted tracks explores the expanse of eighties electronics in the most relaxing way imaginable.

‘Atmospherica’, the second track on the album, epitomises the sound completely. Synth patterns bounce and bleep, outmoded drum machine rhythms pulsate, while a recurring far eastern sample – seemingly lifted from an old kung fu film, or at least, from one of Iasos’s old synths – reminds us that used sparingly, cheesy motifs can be effective to the core.

This certainly isn’t a release that takes itself too seriously. The exotica-leaning ‘Hotel Breakfast’ with its near-comical hits of slap bass and its tasteless-indoor-water-feature sound effects, ‘There Was A Time’ and its endlessly hypnotic marimba, and ‘Algo-Rydim’ juxtaposing peaceful, synthetic bird song with a bold crescendo of keys and panpipes. Broadly speaking, these new age themes somehow manage to flirt with absurdity, while maintaining a genuine underlying quality.

If you sit and let it all sink in, there’s actually an astonishing level of thought here. Sticking unswervingly to the eighties digital preset aesthetic while sustaining interest across an entire album is not an easy task. D.K. managed a similar feat with his most recent album on the imprint, ‘Island Of Dreams’, and Mind Lotion has daringly followed suit.

And you know damn well this has been achieved when the final track ends, fairly abruptly, and you sit there in a completely tranquil state, longing to float from track to track seamlessly once more, in a sun-drenched sea of coral reefs, breakfast bars, pool parties and other tropical eighties idealism.

Buy it direct from HERE.