As the shoegaze revival continues, the genre is taking all sorts of side roads. So is above me, a new project from Rick Altieri (formerly of Blue Ocean) that searches for new ideas and sounds, using drum machines, synths and electronic music production techniques. On this self-titled debut—the press release calls it an EP, but with 8 songs in 27 minutes we consider it an album—we end up in a blue-colored dream world with esoteric landscapes, in which hazy vocals and noisy soundscapes are as alienating as they are intriguing and compelling. The only thing that seems to matter here is creating a certain atmosphere—in the spirit of Anaïs Nin’s famous quote “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are”, it is quite possible that every listener will find something different to take away from these tunes along the way.

The self-titled above me EP/LP is out now digitally through Dandy Boy Records.

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