Survey Channel - Canvas Doubles (2023)

Ahhhhhh.
The sound of SURVEY CHANNEL...it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. It evokes nostalgia. Foggy happiness of barely-remembered days long gone. Hazy summers. Gazing up at blue skies, wondering what it's like to fly.

Canvas Doubles is the sound of a new day dawning. Full of hope and optimism for the future. And yet, it can often find itself being talked off the ledge of the future, coaxed back into the clutches of the cotton wool-covered confines of softly saturated basslines, elongated, reverb-drenched synth euphoria, and gentle, heavenly drum patterns.

And while the tracks that form Canvas Doubles waft over you like a summer breeze, that doesn't necessarily mean that its creation was smooth sailing. After all, if it was this easy, everyone would be doing it.

"It was a struggle at times to create, draining even" states Matt Donatelli, the Buffalo, NY-based producer, and custodian of SURVEY CHANNEL. "Over time I got thinking about my late grandfather and the various things he taught me about creating art. The album's purpose became more clear as time went on. It's more a sonic painting, thematic contrasts like the conscious vs. unconscious, sight vs sound, seeped in personal myth. It's really about the experience of working through the creative process and seeking the emotive qualities of intuition."

To devote an album to a relative who never got the chance to hear it adds extra emotion to Canvas Doubles. Not that it needed it. It sounds like a long lost friend; someone who you have only just reconnected with. It is an album which never forces its sounds upon you. The soft attack of 'Debris Analogs' and 'Linoot' complement themselves brilliantly alongside the powdery brilliance of 'String Lemon' and 'Verticals Fading'. It's a joyous affair from beginning to end.