Com Truise is one of the many pseudonyms of New Jersey admitted synth obsessive designer/musician Seth Haley, the maker of an experimental and bottom heavy style he calls “mid-fi synth-wave, slow-motion funk”. Last year’s well-received Cyanide Sisters EP, included remixes for artists like Twin Shadow, Neon Indian and Daft Punk, but Truise’s debut full-length, Galactic Melt, is entering our varied soundscape this summer. Hi silly spoonerised moniker could’ve suggested an album title like “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy”, but his music is refreshingly non-ironic.

Opener “Terminal” showers you in you in intergalactic synth arpeggios, reminiscing the Blade Runner soundtrack by Vangelis or a late night highway scene from a David Lynch movie. “VHS Sex” follows with a computerized voice repeating the song title over heavy synthetic 80’s funk beats. “Cathode Girls” continues, beat heavy with airy synth reverb and sharp handclaps. It manages to sound both catchy and like an organic Boards Of Canada track. “Flightwave” and its robotic voice opens like an intercosmic shuttle and introduces crisp and heavy beats before “Hyperlips” takes over with its spaced out and bass heavy take on Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells”. “Brokendate” is a beautiful piece of New Romance and poppy ’80s Electro-soul, almost sounding like a slowed down and distorted Wham instrumental.

Seth Haley has spent three years carefully programming this opus. Even though it’s easy to pick all his references from the Joy Division cover art to the shameless 80’s fixation, he doesn’t try to invent something new or revolutionize modern music. He is blending soft and melodic synths with hard hitting hip hop drums, making him sound like he’s a key player of L.A.’s ‘Beat Scene’ – the Low End Theory weekly experimental Hip Hop and electronic music club night that takes place at The Airliner in Lincoln Heights. Galactic Melt manages to be both dark and upbeat at the same time. It’s filled with well-composed and highly aesthetic tracks. Com Truise makes synthetic and emotional music, nostalgic and spaced out like a German or Russian Sci-fi score, and the songs melt into each other without sounding repetitive and recycled. 10 tracks of pure seamless joy

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