Bear Of Bombay – PsychoDreamElectroGaze

Waddafuzz / Shoredive / No Me Escucho / I Dischi del Minollo

Milanese multi-instrumentalist Lorenzo Parisini is following up his 2021 EP release Something Stranger with his first solo full-length as Bear Of Bombay.

PsychoDreamElectroGaze is an ambitious suite of song-based tracks in thrall to the ever-evolving world of synthesisers but structured in a way that dance music, kosmische and electro-pop all find an opportunity to rub shoulders. Various members of RevRevRev, Clustersun and The Mystic Morning add layers of guitar to a few tracks, but on the whole this is one artist’s vision.

The opening track “Tears From Space” does have that cold wave feel to the eighties-influenced synth drums, hinting at OMD‘s crisp purity and dreamy mid-tempo Euro vocalising that put me in the mind of Ronny Moorings from Clan Of Xymox, but it drops all familiarity as blustery space scented oscilloscope patterns emerge. The repetitive nature of the backdrop, the gradually evolving foreground and the generous length of the tracks allows the travelogue nature to offer some serious emotional drift.

Some of the tracks could almost be described as Euro-goth if there were such a thing; the lugubrious nature of some tempos, the detached wistful vocal; but there is something else which is added by the ever-revolving, effervescent synth lines which pushes them into a different realm. They are constantly moving and when the vocals drop out as they are wont to do, it leaves more space for the electronics to interject.

There is the odd touch of melancholy, particularly on “A New Wonder”, which features The Mystic Morning, and there is a doff of the hat to Martin Rev in the ultimate repetition of “close your eyes”. In fact, the euphoric house-y synths give a very different vibe, but this isn’t just copying; there is a sense of progress, of pushing previous ideas that little bit further.

Not only do we move from the more elegiac tracks to one or two that wouldn’t be out of place in a Euro barn in Ibiza, but there are some — particularly “Wingless” — which wouldn’t be out of place on the early Mute catalogue. In fact, add some Silver Apples wildness and some squelchy techno and suddenly you are in a very different place.

Perhaps the title PsychoDreamElectroGaze tells you everything you need, but below the surface is a lot to enjoy. Amazing to think that there are still fresh synth ideas out there and this has plenty.

-Mr Olivetti-