Exit Signal by SOMAFREE INSTITUTE

Existing at the nexus of the acoustic and the electronic world, Seattle’s SOMAFREE INSTITUTE expand upon the established foundation of their Vertical Helix Scan and Seek Sound Shelter EPs with their debut LP, Exit Signal. Anchored by drummer Tim Call and launched into the stratosphere by analog synth wizards Andrew Crawshaw and Justin Thomas Kleine, SOMAFREE INSTITUTE deliver seven tracks of propulsive and pulsating instrumentals that simultaneously rocket into the future while slyly navigating old school methods.

Harnessed and captured by Tim Green (The Fucking Champs, Unwound, Six Organs of Admittance) at Louder Studios, Exit Signal serves as a document of three musicians pushing and pulling against the electronic world in real time. The result is an album that beats with a human heart even as synth arpeggios, vocoded vocals, and auxiliary programmed percussion paint a chrome and neon landscape. There’s a palpable tension in that dichotomy, reinforced by SOMAFREE INSTITUTE’s suspenseful—if not outright sinister—timbral and melodic choices. Too evocative on its own merits to warrant the soundtrack designation, too dynamic to serve as a metronomic stimulant, and too engaging to merely color the air, Exit Signal is an active and engaging tactile exploration of the electronic world’s textural possibilities rendered in song form.

- Brian Cook (Sumac / Botch / Russian Circles )