SECRET CIRCUIT
TACTILE GALACTICS (RVNG INTL.)
Delivered from its celestial womb to the human world for inevitable elevation, Tactile Galactics is the new album by Secret Circuit, the experimental dance music moniker and cosmic interface for Los Angeles artist Eddie Ruscha Jr.
Amongst his earliest musical endeavors, Ruscha co-founded Medicine, an overlooked four piece whose sinister, snarling take on shoegaze landed them as the first American signing to Creation Records.
After leaving Medicine without a bad taste in his mouth, Ruscha's focus shifted from his shoes to the endless array of LA music stores housing analog synthesizers, drum machines and effect units forsaken at the advent of digital technology.
While establishing his Secret Circuit identity through various self-releases, Ruscha was a wingman in notable projects with Thomas Bullock (Rub 'N' Tug) as Laughing Light of Plenty and with DJ Harvey as Food For Gods.
Ruscha likens his studio obsession to "striving for alien sound or rhythm that feels natural." Between 2011 and 2012, Ruscha released no less than four albums, a 12" for Prins Thomas' Internasjonal Spesial label, a handful of blazing mixes on the Cosmic Papers cassette tape series, and his debut for Beats In Space Records, the Nebula Sphynx / Parascopic Rope 12".
Ever the unsettled settler, Ruscha consciously crafted the bulk of Tactile Galactics' tracks at 120 beats per minute.
Ruscha played with the equalizing value of this boilerplate dance music BPM in much the same way a DJ might - to set a clear course for transcendence.
Tactile Galactics is derived from a dance lineage promoting feel over form; rhythmically explored without abandon - or audience - in mind by the krautrock fringe, put to the slow motion disco test at Daniele Baldelli's Cosmic Club, jacked into a House format via the Chicago imprint TRAX and honored today via peer psychonauts like Hieroglyphic Being and Lindstrom.
Tactile Galactics unleashes the lysergic choir of voices in Ruscha's head against a dance grid, but makes sure it stays in soulful step.
For the first time on a Secret Circuit recording, these voices are quite literally present via Ruscha's own vocals, added when "the song called for them." It's by this same regard of the powerful unknown that makes Tactile Galactics Secret Circuit's most incomprehensibly detailed and stunning release to date.