- I recently went to a head shop to check out the wares, and was both amused and perplexed to see that one chain had started rebranding their magic mushrooms from the usual place-of-origin names like Hawaii and Thailand to more absurd propositions. "Dolphins Delight," for example, featured a logo of dolphins arcing up against a starry night on its package and obviously offered a milder and more amateur-orientated experience. The high end product was the "Royal Beluga," not the caviar, but obviously some very intense, natural and karmically healthy trip at the outer limits. I can't imagine too many seasoned trippers buying the gimmick, though, except perhaps one. His name is Lieven Martens and he's Belgian. He's also the mind behind Dolphins Into The Future, a project that has been confusing and tranquilising the indie and electronic music scenes alike.
Dolphins are the missing link between the more pure electronic trajectory of Oneohtrix Point Never and groups like Ducktails and Sun Araw, whose sub aquatic guitar and keyboard-based ambient sprawls have elevated them to the pinnacle of indie fandom this year. The hub of all this activity on the guitar side has been the much lauded LA-based Not Not Fun label who also released the Dolphins' ...On Sea Faring Isolation last year. The latest album from Martens extends the same ideas, mixing antique and digital electronics, ritualistic melodies and ambient sound into a rough New Age soundtrack.
It turns out, though, that Martens trip doesn't come with a dolphin label, but in the form of sleep deprivation. Having gone with limited sleep for two weeks, Martens apparently played and mixed all the sounds without editing, to form what he calls "a lucid collage." This might conjure images of Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works II, but while the dizzying effects of the two bear some similarity, the production and aesthetic of Dolphin's music is entirely different. Everything here is lo-fi. There are dusty samples of waves lapping on Pacific Island shores, Polynesian choirs and, most tellingly, pitch-shifted bird noises.
A better example of where Martens' music lies might be in The Residents' Eskimo and its brilliant blending of faux-anthropology into convincing and playful soundscapes. Or perhaps Demdike Stare, who use pure sounds embedded in a black magic abyss to invoke pagan excitement and fear, whereas Dolphins' spell is rough-edged, organic and pure white wizardry without the kitsch. Either way, all three of the long tracks on Ke Ala Ke Kua take you away, drifting over time and space, hazy with memories and past lives mixing in a tropical fantasy. Despite the name, it's definitely the beluga experience.
TracklistA Ke Ala Ke Kua
B1 Ho'okena Halawai
B2 Ko'okika Moku'aina