Name: Ripped Apparition
Brand: Public Memory

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

FLT071cd

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Colour

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music US

Limited edition

Release date

2020-11-20

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

Secre­tly

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

843563130322

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Total Cap

1 / CD / Extended format: No / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Public Memory

Genre US

Rock-Pop

Label US

Felte

Public Memory is the solo project of Robert Toher, who is best known for his work with ERAAS, the Brooklyn-based electronic project. With a unique blend of electronic and experimental sounds, Public Memory has captivated audiences around the world.
Influenced by artists such as Boy Harsher, Paradox Obscur, and Zanias, Public Memory creates hauntingly beautiful music that pushes boundaries and challenges traditional genres. Their sound can be described as a fusion of darkwave, post-punk, and industrial elements.
With releases like "Wuthering Drum" and "Demolition," Public Memory has gained a dedicated following within the underground music scene. Their atmospheric compositions and introspective lyrics create an immersive experience for listeners.

Since 2016, Public Memory has been crafting lo-fi electronica from the darker corners of the psychic landscape. Gritty atmospherics, damaged synthesizers, and unearthly vocals blend with a mixture of electronic and organic percussion, creating a sense of forceful unease. This, when combined with the shadowy production and emotive singing of Robert Toher, creates a singular contrast between power and vulnerability. Public Memory’s new album, Ripped Apparition, continues to explore these themes. More than anything else that has come before it though, Ripped Apparition is filtered through Public Memory’s narcotic lens–something between dream and nightmare, slowed down and sped up, ugly and beautiful all at once. Rhythm and the power it conjures is still an important part of the album, but the vulnerability behind the power has moved more towards center stage now, however masked by psychic fog and dust it may be. It is as if everything is somehow distilled through a dirty crystal ball in an old opium den, down some long-forgotten alleyway, in some other time.

Upon listening to Epigone, you wouldn’t necessarily expect to be taken so deep into this world. The relaxed beats and airy synths contrast nicely with Toher’s anxious, descending melodies, but the overall impression is lighter, more expansive. Midsummer Shadow, compresses rather than expands. Constricted, claustrophobic drums force the song forward, despite the feeling of walls closing in around them. As in Epigone, synthesizers help to release the listener from the downward pull of the vocals and lyrics. But like the drums, they are ensnared in that same room, attempting to break free of an endlessly recurring obstruction. Butcher, is the sedative, hallucinatory cousin of Epigone. There is space to breathe, and movement here seems possible, but we aren’t sure in which direction that movement is taking us. Spectral chimes conjure visions and reveries, but tape artifacts and vinyl grime keep us rooted in a worn-out world. We aren’t sure if this is past, present, or future.

Despite playing with our experience of time, Ripped Apparition isn’t simply an exercise in nostalgia. Nor does it retreat to an imagined world to come. The album evokes a degraded past and future, existing simultaneously, saturated with loss and uncertainty. Escape to another time is not an option here anyway; there is only the unrelenting present and an attempt to make sense of the dreams and fantasies we’ve built it on.

For fans of Apparat, Jamie XX, Four Tet, Lorn, Portishead, Thom Yorke, ERAAS, SUUNS, Massive Attack and BEAK&gt;.

Ripped Apparition

Music US