Mysteries - New Age Music Is Here

What we do know is that the anonymous collective are signed to Los Angeles’ Felte label - who occasionally have their music distributed through Secretly Canadian, clue-seekers - suggesting they might be local to the area (*looks up LA-based artists*) and the word is that even the label themselves don’t know who is behind the music. What’s also apparent is that this record is evidence Mysteries don’t need to rely on such gimmicks; let’s be honest, this whole anonymous thing is a slightly unnecessary affectation and while it is a well-deserved two fingers up to our demand everything now culture what is genuinely exciting beyond the speculation is that we have a potentially excellent new act on our hands.

The album title is a complete misnomer; there’s nothing new-agey about the music here. What we have is a collection of songs which face both backwards and ahead in its influences and attitude. There’s definitely a big Talking Heads/Byrne influence, especially in the vocals but there’s also beats and electronics that nod to both post-industrial and the music of Warp Records and Aphex Twin, and an adventurous spirit of genre-hopping that befits a 21st century band. The clattering opening of “Introduction” immediately dispels any worries that we’d be dropped into an ambient electronic world; the free jazz percussion and groaning organ recalls a darker Four Tet around his Dialogue era, and you can just make out a menacing warning of “brace yourself” in our singer’s mumbling, before the more structured “Knight Takes Rook” appears with its gloomy synth pop and crooned vocals that pitches itself somewhere around 1985 (or on Wild Beasts’ latest record). We’re made very aware that the mood isn’t one of happiness and contentment in the world of Mysteries with these opening gambits, and things don’t get much brighter as the album moves on.

“Newly Throne” takes a foreboding and insistent drum pattern and lays it over a synth which sounds like a Gregorian choir in a mood, while urgent vocals beg “you just need to take a chance”, “Stateless Wonder” is agitated and minimal dance music that reminds you of everything from Kid A to Dear Science and the lurching and lusty “Motion” staggers around on an addictive and primitive live beat.

There is a middle section drag which kicks in around “Ev’rything” and reveals that Mysteries sometimes wear their influences a little too obviously; that song and “I Wanna” feel like the two brightest tracks here, everything is a little too clean and feels out of place as a result. However, the quietly furious electro pulse of “Deckard” and the epic closer with a false ending and curious epilogue, the woozy and brooding, then urgent, “Trust”, save this record from fizzing out after a promising start.

New Age Music Is Here suggests that Mysteries, whoever they are, have arrived as a complete band already. This isn’t the sound of a band attempting to find themselves across a twelve song debut album, but one that’s confident – unhappy, but confident – in their own ability and where they are heading with their music. As first albums go, this is pretty exciting stuff.