Isaac Riley - Behemoth of Analogue Computer (2022)

 

Isaac Riley - Behemoth of Analogue Computer (2022)

 

For many people, their biggest fear is the future and the uncertainty it holds. For Isaac Riley, it is very much the opposite - forgetting the past, as well as being part of the past that is forgotten - is far more unnerving. In his spiritual follow-up to 2021’s Perception of the Human Mind, Riley explores more of the mysteries and dysfunction hidden away in the human brain, the titular Behemoth of Analogue Computer, while also taking on the role of singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and arranger as he does with all of his solo works. What results is a dense, intricate presentation of dizzying rhythms and time changes that you would expect from an old school progressive rock record, whizzing layers of precise synth arpeggios straight out of a retro video game, guitar tones and harmonies that place you into an unheard track from a missing Queen album; but despite the very open display of influences, Riley manages to fuse all of these disparate sounds into a cohesive, one of a kind sound of his own. 

I REMEMBER NOTHING

I REMEMBER NOTHING

Where Perception left off, Behemoth begins, opening with the next installment in the cross-album epic Repressed Memories, Part V. Immediately, the listener is met with a jolt of sound - short of being able to place what it is, it feels like the aural equivalent of a jumpscare, as the real opening to the track, a smooth synth bass and drum groove, reveals itself. A few moments later, torrents of arpeggiated acoustic guitar pour into the track, cut off soon after by punctuating electric guitar stops and a more melodic synth break that feels like it’s being played obscured in the room over. Within the first two minutes of the album, it sets itself up to dip further into any of these sounds and styles, as the main synth groove returns and the main movements of the opening sequence are reprised, with a more fleshed out guitar stomp giving way to a new, even more syncopated synth riff. The fusion of fuzzed out electrics and sprinting synths make portions of this epic feel like Mike Oldfield’s finest moments, had he been born a decade later, ran back at double speed. Before this can be dwelled on for too long, the brakes are yanked back, the reverb is cranked up, and the Frippertronics of guest musician T.C. DelBen flood the soundscape. After the pretty unrelenting hustle and bustle of the rest of the track, this section is a welcome changeup, and feels like it could go on for five times as long. 

“I love my brother, we love playing games together. I’ve shown him how to draw and learn, he’s just like me. I wish he didn’t stop talking… I don’t remember what he sounds like anymore. I miss talking to him.
I love my brother” 

Extramusical influence is, to me, the sauce of a good piece of music. That is to say, you can still have a good pasta or a good turkey dinner without some kind of sauce, but some kind of noticeable influence outside of the realm of music on the music itself will always set a great piece apart from a good piece. Throughout the teasers Riley made for the album and scattered moments throughout the album itself, analog horror seems to be a decently large influence on the music, or at least the distorted perception of the past that analog horror draws from is cut from the same cloth as Riley’s influences. Analog media in general seems to be a hefty influence on the album in general, as the Samuel’s Toybox interlude gives off the vibe of an old school commercial you’d find buried deep in a YouTube compilation of the most unsettling TV spots - there’s nothing terribly eerie about it at face value, but you get the feeling something about it beneath the surface is far more unnerving. 

I'm a stranger in my own home

 Didn't notice until I was alone 

When the ashes cool in someone's place 

I'll set ablaze to mistakes I've made

Part VI of Repressed Memories opens in a similarly structured way as V - a dissonant intro followed up by alternating passages of synth sequences and contrasting sounds, but where Part V was the introductory layer of the Behemoth, VI throws the listener headfirst into a much deeper maze of the labyrinth. Dissonant piano weaves throughout the sound collage that opens this track, giving way to another sequenced synth groove, similar to the one that opened Part V.  Blips of synthesizer and synthesized speech that sound like they’re getting actively ripped out of this earth and back to the mothership they came from cut in and out of the precise grooves that propel the track along, leading into a more traditional guitar solo juxtaposed with the rest of the instrumentation. Another analog rip through space and time brings us, 17 odd minutes into the album, to the first vocal section. A callback to Part IV from Perception’s closing track, this section sees the track pare down to just a rhythm section of bass and drums, putting all of the focus onto Riley’s vocals. What was very airy and light in Part IV is now very grounded and direct, and eventually full and grandiose with the addition of more live instrumentation including bass from fellow Imperial Night band member Sean Sisti. As a way to wrap up both Side 1 of the album and the entire Repressed Memories suite, this section works extremely well - but not without two short epilogues to cap the entire thing off, a short guitar procession and another musical snippet warped to near destruction through a tape. 

Repressed memories linger in my head 

Inescapable, loom over my bed 

And try as I may, they won’t go away 

Inevitable, they’re here to stay

Kicking off the theoretical second side of the album is Disambiguation, the first of many more typical verse-chorus poppier tracks. Even within a four minute track, however, the sonic variety presented on Side 1 is still highlighted - with a synth-pop verse, a guitar driven chorus that verges on the heaviest the album gets (more on that later), and a softer bridge featuring fretless bass and hand drums, the track goes through more phases and moods than most bands go through on an entire album while still staying tight and cohesive. Lyrically, Disambiguation highlights the frustration towards being forgotten and left in the past, a topic that crops up throughout the album through many different lenses and perspectives. 

Don't be afraid of change, it's natural 

You can't arrange it, that's laughable 

After all this planning, what now? 

You don't have a fail-safe, oh wow

One element I love about this album is the contrast between synth driven sections and acoustic sections (acoustic being both acoustic and electric guitars), with two main examples being the opening of Repressed Memories Part V and the fifth track on the album, Betraying Science. The shifts to live instrumentation feel as if the Technicolor has been flipped on, and give the track a lift at crucial moments. Another similarity the two tracks have is the personnel, funny enough, as Betraying Science features T.C. DelBen again, this time on bass guitar. On first listen, it would be easy to mistake it as synthesized bass like much of the album due to how tight the playing, but overall it gives the track a bit more of a human timbre, especially in the heavier sections. 

I'll take you, I'll have you 

It's not like it's a secret 

Without you, I'm aimless 

So just believe me when I say

The only instrumental in the second half of the album, A Continuum of Cartoon Fools acts as another interlude in a sense, though this time more fleshed out. If Samuel’s Toybox was a TV spot, Continuum is the short that plays between shows while late night cartoons run - you know you’ve seen it before, but the memory of it is hazy and you can’t quite place where you’ve seen it as you come across it again online years later. In my mind, the greatest sin an instrumental can commit is having no direction or narrative arc, and thankfully this track does the exact opposite, and while there are no lyrics you still do feel like you’re following a ragtag band of cartoon fools through various halls of mirrors and angular twists and turns. 

Sometimes the scope of 

Hellscapes you hope to 

Practically cope with 

Fall to the wayside

Speaking of angular twists and turns, Cause and Defect is possibly the most elusive in terms of meter and time signature on the album, with a groove that feels like it could fold in on itself at any moment. Although obscured, the track is a love song at its core, and while it’s the shortest proper track on the album it is by no means a sleeper - on that note, there really are no sleeper tracks on the album, which is another praise of the album I’d like to sing. While I do have favorites on the album (which we will get to very soon), Behemoth as a whole is a very, very consistent album, with the array of sound palettes each song uses in varying snippets and sections providing a lot of track to track cohesion that’s not entirely obvious until repeated listens.

I don't need your shit-faced dreams 

I don't need your fascist schemes 

I can't stand to see us bleed I just want some OUDE TECHNOLOGIE

Depending on the day (yes, the album has only been out for a week at the time of writing this), Oude Technologie may be my favorite track off of Behemoth, but I do hold some bias in that, as my band Automata cameos for a brief 30 seconds on the track. Bias aside, Oude is probably the most alien sounding track on the album, with slinking synth lines, washed out vocals, and very spacey sound effects bringing us into the song. For a song rejecting the state of modern religion, it’s pretty lowkey, and as the drums and percussion break away we’re left with an arrangement of synths and piano drenched in reverb, suspended in motion… until possibly the heaviest moment of the album swoops in and kicks the shit out of the listener. The rest of the track is the perfect fusion of heaviness and synthy-ness that Riley has otherwise juxtaposed against each other on the album, and does a fantastic job at highlighting the killer vocals that have otherwise been pretty mellow throughout the rest of the album. In an alternate timeline, Oude Technologie, or even Repressed Memories Part VI, would have been a fantastic closer to the album, however…

As those diamond days come to a close 

And everyone that you know wants to 

Say farewell 

Or at least goodbye

Most times, album closers are the heaviest, or most bombastic, or most emotional tracks on an album. The quasi title track of the album and closer, Behemoth, functions a little as the latter, but more so as the other type of album closer - the song that simply wouldn’t fit anywhere else on the album due to how tonally different it is. Originally conceived as part of a erratic suite of short snippets varying wildly in sound, some of which were inserted into other tracks throughout the album, Behemoth arrives as a fairly straight forward acoustic ballad after a sea of sprawling synths and electronics. Whereas much of the rest of the album dealt with anger as a response to the feeling of being left behind in the past, Behemoth treats it more with the attitude of “and so it goes” - to quote Riley himself, “people might forget me, but I’ll forget them too”. There are a lot of moments of emotional tension and release throughout the album, but with Behemoth, the rest of the album feels recontextualized as one large buildup of tension finally released in the final minutes, resulting in a doubly cathartic album closer. While the album works best as one continuous piece both thematically and musically, I can easily see Oude Technologie and Behemoth being the two tracks I come back to the most. 

When you see me walking down the road 

Will you wave your hand? 

Or will you turn around and leave 

Like everyone else has?

And with that, we’ve explored a little more of the Behemoth of Analogue Computer that sits between our two ears with our own two ears. It can be a daunting and almost nigh impossible task to understand our own brain let alone the brains of others, but thankfully for us Isaac Riley has laid his on the table for us should we decide to dive into it. If the question is should we? To me, the answer is a clear yes. While some of his other albums like have been my favorites from his discography at times - 2018’s Silky Milkshake & the Schism for its contradictory lush yet lo-fi approach to throwback psych rock and 2021’s Perception of the Human Mind, the spiritual prototype for Behemoth come to mind - this newest release may just be both my favorite and his best yet. Behemoth is Riley’s tenth full length album, and while it sits as the highest peak among a wide sonic landscape, I truly believe this is only the beginning of a monumental mountain of music to come that will reach higher and higher peaks to come.