Album Review - Radio For The Daydreamers 'Mother Superior And her fields of Migraine'

Released in July of this year,'Mother Superior and Her Fields Of Migraine' is the second album by Pittsburgh, USA experimental outfit Radio For The Daydreamers, and the first in a tryptich entitled 'Praying For The be(a)st .It's a wilfully eclectic collection, not easy listening by any means, but a rich, cinematic journey through a mostly  instrumental non fiction narrative of an unnamed 'Faustian' character.

The premise then behind this first album of the series is ,as the band themselves put it, "the story of our character indulging in misery, self-realization, seclusion, developing phobias, anxieties and a need to break out to help his own mind. Accepting negativities, even though it is clear that the consequences of those negativities would be grim. To accept evil just to get some purpose"  .And if all that sounds terribly high minded, well that's because it is,and unashamedly so.More of a kind of soundtrack to an imagined film, 'MSAHFOM' is as abstract as they come, an album rooted in dreamy soundscapes and jazz flourishes, with the occasional outburst of post-rock elegance just for good measure.Opener 'Black River Time Bombs' evokes an atmosphere of Lynchian menace in it's rumbling synth bass and jazz tempo, while 'With wings you will learn to fall'  is a warped blend of demonic sampled voices, and elegant piano, while 'Ghosts keep me safe while you are gone is a blissed out sonic mindfuck that recalls Boards Of Canada in it's uneasy melancholia.

And so further down the rabbit hole we go, with the industrial coldness and demonic breathing of  'Magnetar Mephisto' soundtracking your most subdued, painful nightmares, while 'I am not coming back home' , with it's lead female soul vocal and relative jaunty pace hints at a sense of a light at the end of the tunnel, however dim and fleeting, and provides a counterpoint to the almost pantomime gothic  menace of 'Curl Up And Die'.

Throughout, the band employ such a wide array of musical styles, from minimalist , barely there electronica, to jazz rhythms , to experimental industrial sounds(shades of experimental acts such as Einsturzende Neubaten can be heard in the grind of 'Praying For The be(a)st).But in essense, it's a sound and style of their own devising.Comparisons are pretty much futile, but suffice to say this is one of the most interesting and wilfully eclectic records you'll hear all year.Not for everyone, but the rewards, especially with repeat listens, are there.

Rating:8/10
For fans of :Boards Of Canada,Aphex Twin, Trent Reznor, Simon Bird
Listen here: http://radioforthedaydreamers.bandcamp.com/
Stephen O' Connor
bornagainnihilist@gmail.com