A busted mid-century TV set hums alive, its channels bleeding right into a universe solely Zeds Lifeless can tune.
Their long-awaited sophomore album, Return to the Spectrum of Intergalactic Happiness, bridges yesterday’s voices to tomorrow’s beats. Eight years within the making, it is out now through the influential digital music duo’s personal document label, Deadbeats.
The album’s conceptual framework—a tv flickering via time—completely fits Zeds Lifeless’s sampling prowess and lets their obsession with crate-digging evolve right into a widescreen narrative. What makes it distinctive is not merely its technical brilliance, however the way it transforms disparate cultural fragments into one thing of a sonic Tarantino movie with dusty samples, sharp cuts and infinite fashion.
Sampling turns into sorcery within the palms of those stressed dubstep pioneers. “Bad Guy” stands tall among the many tracklist, interpolating Al Pacino’s iconic strains from Scarface in a menacing electroclash monitor with classic breakbeats. Different highlights embody “A Million Dreams,” the place legendary jazz pianist Duke Ellington’s gravelly musings from a Sixties interview float via liquid drum & bass; and “Angel,” which channels the uncooked French electro of Justice.
For the diehards, Zeds Lifeless revisit their roots in “Hold My Hand,” delivering a gut-punch of nostalgia via haunting vocals dripping over bass so thick it may coat lungs. “One of These Mornings” follows swimsuit, threading the soul-stirring voice of R&B icon Patti LaBelle via a surprising dubstep monitor that thrums with each reverence and grit. These tracks anchor Return to the Spectrum of Intergalactic Happiness, tethering its wilder experiments to the duo’s foundational sound.
The origin of the album’s curious title is a cosmic coincidence, a half-remembered dream Zeds Lifeless tweeted again in 2017 and lately rediscovered by a fan. In accordance with a press launch, “Return” signifies the revival of their early sound whereas the “Spectrum of Intergalactic Happiness” refers back to the radio waves and lightweight of the electromagnetic spectrum, a metaphor for the unseen threads binding the duo’s influences to their manufacturing.
“In making Return to the Spectrum of Intergalactic Happiness, we really connected with the spirit of what Zeds Dead is. Throwing whatever crossed our minds at the wall and seeing what stuck,” Zeds Lifeless mentioned in a press release. “One of our biggest inspirations for this album was the idea of not letting anything matter in our creative process except for our own taste. It is very much art for art’s sake, and the product is something we can both fully stand behind.”
The discharge of Return to the Spectrum of Intergalactic Happiness coincides with the launch of an eponymous North American tour, which can function “a one-of-a-kind visual component,” per the press launch.
You will discover the brand new album on streaming platforms right here.
Comply with Zeds Lifeless:
X: x.com/zedsdead
TikTok: tiktok.com/@zedsdead
Instagram: instagram.com/zedsdead
Fb: fb.com/zedsdead
Spotify: tinyurl.com/4tjppc6p