Magazine Sixty Music Review with Stars of the Lid

(Cover credit Patrick Lakey)

Greg Fenton reviews Stars of the Lid – Music for Nitrous Oxide – Artificial Pinearch Manufacturing

Thirty years seems like an increasingly small amount of time as the years pass by, but here we are. Remastered anew for 2025, the thing that matters most is the feelings generated, which have lost none of their spark from then to now – the sign of good and great music. You could ask how a series of drones could cause such a shocking, incisive emotional wave, but perhaps the answer to that eternal question lies between us and God. And let’s not try to cram everything into little, divisive genre boxes; this music is too expansive for that.

The rich layers of sound created by Wiltzie and his partner, Brian McBride (RIP), can seem largely comforting, although almost in the exact moment, disturbing the equilibrium, evoking a rumble in the grainy distance. The music is starkly compelling, like an addictive itch to be fed sonically. Offering its fulfilling reward system, it’s also about transporting you to somewhere else, out of body, out of mind, at least for the duration.

There’s nothing else to say, apart from the important thing. Listen to the music and soak it all in. However, I would like to describe it as both classical and contemporary in passing, regardless of the year. And I also wonder what it must have felt like to be these people, to play music of such heavy, heavenly intensity?

Release:July 25
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