Released: 31 October 2013
Song Count: 13
Rating: 8.2/10
Description:
Here we have an album by Greek-American music producer George Smaragdis, professionally going by the name Starcadian, who recently deceased in a tragic traffic accident in New York City in May this year, at the age of only 44. Smaragdis released several albums and works over the course of his life, with Sunset Blood being one of the less popular ones in his discography.
A majority of the album is in an upbeat, almost fully electronic style that could be described as "funky", meshing together synths and sawtooth-like sounds with tunes sung through a vocoder-type voice filter to create a series of tracks well-fitted for a science-fiction film or a general cyperpunk setting. This part of the album shines brightest during its especially upbeat and catchy tracks or its melodically captivating hooks, including songs like "Chinatown", "Sgt. Tagowski", "Lovetop" and "Waters".
The last four tracks of the album, though, is when the listening experience gets particularly interesting, given the fact that - excluding the final song, which I will get to - they sound thematically and musically completely different to the rest of the tracks, as if they were part of a completely seperate album entirely. "Binary Star", "The Floppy Disk" and "It Ends Now" instead share the sound of a dramatic and thrilling film soundtrack with appropriate instrumentation and a general stray-away from the otherwise distinctly electronic beats of what preceded this series of musical pieces. "It Ends Now" struck me as the most captivating song out of this trilogy due to its segments set in time signatures such as 10/4 and 5/4, which I quite appreciate, as someone who particularly takes enjoyment in songs with alternative time signatures in them.
The final track on the album, the titular "Sunset Blood", appears to be a nigh-perfect blend between the energy of both the instrumental soundtrack-like pieces and the ear-catching songs from before, carrying on a dramatic and emotive atmosphere whilst simultaneously reintroducing sawtooth-like sounds and other electronic instrumentation to accompany the more classic one, and tying these two aspects of the album together in one firm knot. The musical drop and metaphorical "release" around the three-minute mark of the song following a well-crafted, thrilling buildup makes "Sunset Blood" all the more satisfying to listen to, and ends things on a note far higher than practically anything else present in the album.
A great collection of tracks all around from a passed-on artist whose adjacent works I would most definitely like to look into in the near future. Rest in peace, Starcadian, and thank you for the music!