Band names are always interesting things to examine. More often than not, they are just throw-away affairs, a word or phrase that sounds good. But now and then, you come across one that seems perfectly in tune with the music made in its name. Restless Mosaic is one such titles.
As Brandon Isleib, the artist behind the name, explains, the title was chosen to express the “ idea of a mosaic’s intricacy and structure, and how the parts and the whole relate in a way that they only make sense when they come together.” And this is indeed a quality that runs through this third album, Quality Mirrors, an ever-shifting array of sounds and styles, mixing and matching and melding and merging of a myriad of musical forms, many of which generally have no business being in the vicinity of each other.
At one extreme, we find the ebbing and flowing of squalling sonics and elegant electronica that is “Circling the Canopies,” at the other, “Lost Within This Time,” a song gently elevated out of the ambient realm by adding subtle beats. Anji Bee’s gorgeous vocals are a brilliant and angelic contrast to the digital world it dances over.
And it isn’t just music with precision and poise that we find here; the lyrics are also poignant and profound, the sonically angular “7000 Sparks” discussing the generational power divide with a family unit and “The Emotion Right In Front of Me’s” smooth minimalism musing on the idea that therapists might be just turning their patients into versions of the therapist themself, rather than a better version of who they actually are.
It’s a beguiling album, not only in terms of its musical originality but also in the almost philosophical nature of its themes. When did electronic music become so clever?
Quality Mirrors album
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