Sometimes you get the hamster and sometimes the hamster gets you. It’s all about the time you spend spinning on the wheel of life looking for answers to questions that have answers that you don’t really want to hear. So, in order to distract yourself from the inevitable, you might perhaps seek a soundtrack for contemplative distraction. Something like “Phantasmagoria” by Ani Glass.
Ani Glass was, of course, in the final incarnation of the connoisseurs’ girl group, The Pipettes, so she automatically accrues fourteen cool as a cucumber points. That said, “Phantasmagoria” isn’t an album of synth pop singles waiting to be launched into chart action as there is something altogether more spiritual about this album. The lyrics, whether in English or Welsh, have a poetic quality as if providing the listener with due cause for reflection and the music, despite being mostly looped straight from the machine, still has the organic intent of a hymn as if the choice of sounds were merely because the ears of today expect it.
To that end, “Phantasmagoria” appears both dated and modern and Ani Glass injects enough obliqueness and obscurity to induce curiosity as to her purpose and artistic intent. This album is not a hard one to listen to yet said curiosity has to be engaged to determine just why it is worthy of your attention. That is indeed a spinning wheel scenario.
Available on vinyl from Bandcamp and on digital from the usual places.