"laid out for all to see...
Ashby laces the EP with current societal unrest with the stuff of science fiction with "unbridled imagination". Ashby offers:
“There are moments where you feel good and you can escape and feel normal and then there’s an underlying anxiety under everything. That’s kind of how life has felt these last couple of years.”
Good science fiction is escapist fare but holds up a mirror. It has always tackled hard themes such as racism, imperialism, duality, hierarchy and power structures and quests for the meaning of life itself. Old science fiction, interestingly asks many of the same questions as new science fiction, it is just framed differently, embedded in new technologies. It will be interesting to see how Ashby frames his queries, fears and even resolutions on his new EP.
-Robb Donker Curtius
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You are on the precipice of the ultimate unknown. You are the pulse of doubt in a scientist’s brain. You are standing in the ashes of a world you once cherished. You are unsure if you are human anymore. The Man That Time Forgot blooms these ideas into interstellar color, crafted with equal parts ambition and heart by Radiolarian, moniker for solo artist Gordon Ashby. Ashby, fascinated by the advancements of modern science, as well as the sprawling world of science fiction, crafts an experience that takes its cues from some of the most engrossing sci-fi stories of all time. By blending our current societal unrest with unbridled imagination, Radiolarian cultivates an experience that feels at once like an escape and a twisted mirror held up to our own reality.
“There are moments where you feel good and you can escape and feel normal and then there’s an underlying anxiety under everything. That’s kind of how life has felt these last couple of years.” Ashby says, describing the threads of unease that run through the record, which remains unpredictable from beginning to end. The Man That Time Forgot is lush and melodic, glimmering with textures and driving beats that make up Ashby’s diverse palette. His creative intuition guides the listener through the twists and turns of a faraway (or not so far away) world, while his voice shines with emotive charisma, making it difficult to believe this is Ashby’s first earnest venture as the primary songwriter, producer, and engineer for a project.
A life-long Portlander, Ashby cut his teeth in the local music scene by cycling the house show circuit in a variety of projects, though never as a front-person. Around 2017, circumstance led Ashby to embark on the path towards becoming a solo musician, and he soon became determined to write and record The Man That Time Forgot. For Ashby, who would go on to single-handedly play, record, and mix every piece of the record, it was an unprecedented task that partners, in spirit, with humanity’s maiden voyage into space. Indeed, as the album opens with the buoyant “Embarkation Day,” it is easy to recall a blue-skied inaugural launch, brimming with an optimism that promises to be challenged.
The record takes its first disquieting turn with Posthumanism, a track that unfolds entirely within the receding mind of a humanoid character: a man who has been genetically modified against his will until he does not know what he is any longer. Paralleling this, three uneasy notes repeat throughout the song, mutating and shifting in and out of focus amongst the propulsive drums and bass, looping seemingly for eternity. There’s nowhere to hide / I’ve lost control of time, Ashby’s voice floats, ominous and lost within the never-ending cycle. This alternate reality destabilizes the wonderment that opens the record up, a reminder of the dark truths that wait to be uncovered beneath the surface.
The Man That Time Forgot, the debut EP from Radiolarian, delivers us into and out of danger like a good novel, opening doors to unanswerable questions and conversations that feel fresh to the world of indie rock. It was written, engineered, and mixed by Gordon Ashby in Portland, OR, and mastered at Atomic Mastering in Salem, OR.
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