Imagine if some musical archeologists dug up some unreleased glitchy Kid A lost files and handed em to Kevin Parker (Tame Impala) to add musical curiosities and downtempo attitude to the equation? The work of experimental/minimalist electronic artist RⱯHM⚉ (Rahm), would answer that musical offspring.
As a member of the collaborative altopalo, RⱯHM⚉ might indeed have an unyielding Sigur Rós like name and musical presentation, but his creative results are quite the spontaneously chill.
The songs on RⱯHM ⚉’s second album, So Close But So Far (stylized SO CLOSE BUt s o º o ˚ ˚ ˚ ˚ f ƒ ª a r ® ˚) take the listener to a place of introspection, an uncomfortable space maybe, but they’ll carry you there with the tenderness of eleven eager earwigs. “I hope people can confront something in themselves,” says RⱯHM ⚉. “Perhaps go on a little mining excavation and feel like they have the space to do that.”
RⱯHM ⚉ knows a thing or two about confronting yourself. So Close But So Far was written three years ago, two years before COVID-19, but it uncannily fits our moment. “I consider music making to be a kind of mining, or maybe spelunking. You grab some hot feelings way down there and try to bring it back up to the surface. The album came out of that mining of feelings.”
Glide is premiering the new single “that kinda dead feeling on the inside (yeah yeah)” by RⱯHM ⚉ a floating wonder of instrumental oddities and vocal revelations.
“I was thinking a lot about isolation and narcissism,” he adds. “Feeling that loving somebody was a hard thing to do. Not like the drama of romance, but fears, neuroses, and other blockages that happen in the context of daily life and intimacy. I think that harkens to the title, which means being present with somebody but feeling distant, removed.”
