preston.outatime Mirror Radius

CD Catalogue Number: SUBEX00070
Download Catalogue Number: SUBEX00071
General Release Date: 17/12/2021

"A surreal adventure pulling at the heartstrings, Mirror Radius is an encapsulating listening experience—vibrant and cool to the touch."
Igloo Mag review

"There are elements here which seem reminiscent of seasoned veterans such as Digitonal or Scanner (both masterful at evocative ambient soundtracks themselves), but preston.outatime seems to be an artist capable of carving out his own particular musical space." Electricity Club review

Preston.outatime's third album Mirror Radius takes a stripped-back, slower approach to his genre patchwork style, contemplating some big philosophical ideas, taking a deep look at being lost as a positive thing, especially when exploring the natural world.

“I work on a lot of small musical ideas all the time if that’s small generative programmed patterns, long drones, collected sounds, Field recordings,” explains Preston. “This all gets collected and labelled and when it comes to making a larger piece of work like an album or EP it often comes together quite fast, all the hard work is already done, it's like arranging parts of an installation or a collage.”

These parts are expertly assembled to fit an emotional theme, with his previous outing Coplanar revelling in the euphoric, Mirror Radius takes the textured approach into more serene and sedate places. The music is Preston always “trying to find an emotional point in something electronic/recorded. I think about it quite visually, where it fits in an imagined scene/image or what it might conjure in the listener's mind.” In this case, Mirror Radius is contemplative about our place in a vast world.

The album’s title track follows an idea of a journey, with the ‘Mirror Radius’ sitting at the heart of the expedition, travelling past milestones, becoming unclear, as if moving forwards and backwards simultaneously. It is a journey that is both occurring and reflecting back as it happens. When you hear it, you’ll feel a sense of both movement and inertia.

‘Cut The Knot”, is a more traditional track, intended to be epic and cinematic without the tendency for being saccharine, or drowning in cheesy optimism. The final result is uplifting without any of the trappings of being obvious. It inspires hope with each listen. Both are excellent examples of the ambient storytelling that can be found on Mirror Radius.

Some of the foundations for this new material can be heard on 2020’s Replanar album, a remix collection of Coplanar with the likes of worriedaboutsatan, Jonathan Krisp and BUNKR offering takes on the music that fit the developing sounds on Mirror Radius. preston.outatime has also lent his own remix styles to cuts from the likes of Battery Operated Orchestra and Fake Mice, activity that has also lent itself to a constant reappraisal of his sound.

Reference points for Mirror Radius are as varied as Radiohead, Bowery Electric, Apparat and the early Artificial Intelligence compilations released at the birth of Warp Records.

This is another excellent release in the discography of an electronic artist constantly discovering and rediscovering what their music is all about, taking familiar equipment on a brand new trip into the unknown.