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S.E.T.I., "Final Trajectory"
Andrew Lagowski's S.E.T.I. project has been constructing dark ambient dramas with an extra-terrestrial sensibility for over 20 years, blending unidentifiable electronic passages with moments of identifiable synthesizers or samples, and Final Trajectory is the culmination of that. Culled from 30 years of recordings, this album drifts from fascinating to terrifying, much like massive expanse of the universe that influenced it.
Consisting of a single, nearly hour long piece, the album first begins with dramatic sweeps of electronics; lush synthesizer pads clashing with chirpy, modular electronic noises that prevent the music from ever becoming too calm.Just as the backing layers begin to drift off into a soft, pensive bit of spaciousness, the erratic outbursts cut through like static on a distant radio transmission.
Between these dissonant moments, the remainder builds to a cold ambience that vacillates between peaceful and bleak, blending the quiet keyboards with fuzzy waves of electronics.As the piece goes on, the calmer moments are broken up not by abrupt electronics but by heavily processed voice samples that sound simultaneously human and alien, either heavily effected by interference or the sound of another organism entirely.
This cycle of dramatic, yet sparse electronics with sharp, dissonant outbursts is the recurring motif of Final Trajectory.Synth strings build to a quiet, yet tense level to be interrupted by heavily processed samples, electronic blips, or stuttering, digital glitches.At times, even without the interruptions, the more traditional keyboard passages take on a darker, more aggressive direction.
While it might have a clearly cyclic structure to it, there is an overarching progression to the piece that slowly builds its way into a noisier, crackling near apocalypse of sound to then lightly drift away peacefully in the darkness.The metaphor of space travel and the unknown is a recurring theme amongst many electronic artists, but only a handful manages to do it as well as Lagowski.The symbolism is overt, and at times the approach may lean into science fiction more than theoretical astrophysics, but those are the moments that keep Final Trajectory unique and compelling.
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