Harmonious Discord label boss and abstract artist PointBender returns with Dusk Frontier, his third and most expressly creative full-length album yet. PointBender is the moniker of Sean Anderson, an independent artist living in Austin, Texas, who has been putting out back-pocket releases for over fifteen years on imprints like Guidance, Thoughtless, Blaq, and his own imprint. Dusk Frontier is one-and-a-half years in the making and features collaborations from Toronto-based vocalist and Lal frontwoman Rosina Kazi, Texas-based dub artist Vegenaut, and techno artist Matthew Thompson. Sean took a new approach to constructing this album, focusing on recording single takes of audio directly and limiting himself to outboard gear with minimal computer intervention. In addition, the album features a multitude of live instrumentation with recordings of guitar, bass, drums, and clarinet alongside some personal field recordings. Dusk Frontier embodies a new outlook and direction for PointBender as an artist and is a taste of the future of the project.
Among the highlights is the title track which is a mixture of deep moods and cinematic overtures supported by driving percussion. Rosina Kazi provides a wide range of vocal phrases and complex harmonies over a field of growing synthesizer interplay. For "Brain Mud", Sean teams up with Vegenaut, a cross-genre artist with a flair for off-kilter glitchy dub works. Together they create a messy slow burn with smooth bass and a competing mixture of leads and synth sketches. There's also "Dub Creature", a canonical example of PointBender’s signature cinematic sound. Tightly controlled dub chords build into a druggy midnight bouncer with bass slides and plenty of dark arpeggios. The album closes with "Three Complications", an '80s-inspired piece that toes the line between indie-dance and a proper Balearic house song. There's much more to dig into here … each selection has its unique lens and language. Dusk Frontier is a thoughtful narrative on the boundaries of electronic music and how to push past cemented dance floor formulas.
Nick Warren (Hope Recordings) - "An excellent album. 'Brain Mud' and 'Dub Creature' are very fine."
Atish (Desert Hearts / Robot Heart) - "'Dusk Frontier' has an amazing vocal, and 'Dub Creature' has a really nice deep waviness. Actually I like all the tracks in some way … quite a bit to explore here!"
Anthony Pappa (Red Light District / Bedrock) – “Cool album. Some nice tracks here that will be used.”
Massimiliano Pagliara (Live At Robert Johnson) - "Digging 'Three Complications'."
DJ Aldrin (One With Music, Singapore) - "Wow … nice one!"
Kazuumi Ishii (Electronic Directory, Japan) - "A deep yet beautiful album."
Adam Warped (Whiskey Pickle / Strange Days) - "Nice work. Really enjoying the drone like ambience of 'Intro to an Aircraft'."
Alinep (Circle Music / Time in Manila) - "Big album here … all tracks are quality."
Harry Avers (NOICE!) - "Solid release … enough ear candy to listen to for days."
Jay Douzi (Runtomorrow) - "Digging this album … 'Steam Morris' is dope! I'm going to play it out this weekend."
Tariq Ziyad (Nu Urban ERA) - "A truly impressive musical journey. This is a great dance music album, the likes of which we used to get in the golden era. Excellent."
Esette (Substation Recordings / Girls on Decks) – “I’m loving ‘Passive Casio’ & ‘Three Complications’. This is a fun release with lots of diversity.”
Lee Guthrie (Click Therapy / Wiggle) – “’Pferd’, ‘Dusk Frontier’, and ‘Passive Casio’ all very nicely done.”
Available Now From Beatport, Juno Download, iTunes, and Spotify.