Holovr - Continual Unfolding (2023)

Jimmy Billingham's HOLOVR project further explores beatless synthscapes with a new 6-track long-player, recorded live on an array of hardware.

In a similar vein to 2016's Anterior Space, the 6 tracks are focused yet free, repeating yet unfolding, with glistening sequences unravelling in fractal filigree. Pristine plucks and unfurling acid lines crisscross enveloping pads and slow-release textures. Though ambient, it's also underpinned by a persistent rhythmic pulse across each of the tracks, locking in entrancing melodic cycles.

There's many of the familiar HOLOVR touchpoints (90s electronica/braindance, Berlin School synth music and new age ambience) but there's also elevated technique on display and a clarified focus on what makes these zones so special to Jimmy: the potential for melodic pattern-based electronic music to uplift, shift and ease consciousness.

Though it often sounds trite to call synth music psychedelic, there is a subtle but tangible psychedelic quality to the way these tracks delicately balance repetition and variation, and persistence and novelty, capturing a sense of aural existence continually unfolding.