The new album from Reaches, Wherever The Internet Goes, Sorrow Follows, out next Friday on We Be Friends, is full of energy. The tunes here on this record, from musician Justin Randel, straddle the boundaries between techno-pop and electronica.
The supple (and wonderfully-titled) "Take Me To The Beginning of Time" sees Randel ride a keyboard hook that's part Eighties New Wave and part rave comedown, while "GCI" goes even further back, to the sort of material that once showed up on Mute Records some three or so decades ago. Elsewhere, "The World Has Seen It Before" is all bright surfaces, the washes of keyboards carrying the tune forward with a nice bit of energy.
The music of Reaches seems derivative in spots but Justin Randel at least believes in this sort of thing, and that's enough to give this a reason to exist. What's interesting here is not necessarily the hooks, such as they are, but how Randel appropriates from the past to offer up something in 2019 that feels a bit futuristic in spots.
Wherever The Internet Goes, Sorrow Follows is out on Friday via We Be Friends Records.
[Photo: Lily Lake]