Palace Savant

Brooklyn synth journeyman Jonas Reinhardt's sixth full-length album, Palace Savant, was inspired by the St. Vitus Cathedral, a breathtaking gothic castle in Prague designed by architect Peter Parler during the 14th century. Reinhardt is no stranger to works which evoke architecture — his 2011 LP on Not Not Fun was titled Music for the Tactile Dome. Palace Savant's tense, chaotic atmospheres build off of the sci-fi themes explored with his previous album Ganymede, which was the soundtrack to an experimental film set on the moon of the same name. As with much of Reinhardt's recordings, the album features plenty of bubbling synth arpeggios, as well as enveloping, occasionally menacing washes of sound. There are a few lapses into stargazing cosmic disco beats, but not nearly to the extent of the 2012 EP Foam Fangs or the 2013 full-length Mask of the Maker. The album doesn't feature the full-band instrumentation of some of Reinhardt's previous albums, but his epic synth constructions are expansive enough to fill the cathedral that the album draws inspiration from. Even with the album's grand visions, there are still a few rough edges that bring it down to earth, such as the smoldering distortion underneath the surface of "Androma" and the trippy, overlapping patterns of "Noctornum." Reinhardt continues to draw from the best aspects of cosmic synth music in order to create thrilling soundscapes which surge forward and captivate.