2LP Black And Silver-Grey
Ujikaji Records / The Observatory (2014) SG
Two years after the release of The Observatory’s Catacombs comes the Singapore band’s first remix album. Widely regarded as The Observatory’s darkest and angriest release, Catacombs is a texturally complex and viscerally emotional album, a study in delusion, insanity and obsession. Now, 11 respected artists from Singapore, China, Norway, Thailand/Japan, and the US, have been invited to enter the vortex of The Observatory and rebuild their own sonic worlds from the detritus of that landmark album.
Titled after a key lyric from Catacombs, Behind These Eyes sees these 11 visionaries steering the trajectories of the original album in different directions, resulting in a sprawling double LP that is by visionaries steering the trajectories of the original album in various directions, resulting in a sprawling double LP that is by turns more violent, calming, morose, euphoric, abstract, and elegiac.
While listeners new to The Observatory will find in these disparate tracks a strange but certain unity of spirit borne from passionate experimentalism, fans of the band will find, over the four vinyl sides, a lingering sensation of familiar displacement and the uncanny. An album forged out of friendships and collaborations, Behind These Eyes is jointly released by The Observatory and Ujikaji.