Vibrant pop experimentalists the Octopus Project enlist sound sculptors Dave Fridmann (the Flaming Lips, MGMT) and Danny Reisch (Shearwater) to mix their sixth LP, the bombastic Memory Mirror. It follows the Austin band's critically lauded film score for the 2014 film Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter, which saw the usually boisterous ensemble expanding into more ambient and cinematic territory. Perhaps in response, they imbued their next studio album with an even greater dose of their peculiar strain of intensity. Consistently unclassifiable, the Octopus Project have always taken a left-field approach, mixing spastic instrumental party pop with all manner of analog and digital elements, they've increasingly come to rely on vocals in their music, albeit with their own untraditional arrangements. On Memory Mirror, bright and brash textures collide on 12 complex songs that mix space age lounge with mathy avant pop. On their most tripped-out fare, they somewhat resemble Scottish psych artists the Phantom Band or, on the more melodic numbers, a present-day take on the kind of pop intelligentsia that Sweden's Komeda turned out in the late '90s. At their best, like on album highlights "Wrong Gong" and "Mendoza," the Octopus Project offer an avalanche of sound that both challenges and pleases. ~ Timothy Monger, Rovi

1		Prism Riot
2		Brounce
3		Wrong Gong
4		Mendoza
5		Remember Remembering
6		Understanding Fruit
7		Small Hundred
8		Pedro Yang
9		Woah, Mossman!!
10		Beta Wand
11		Cuidate
12		Ledgeridge
13		Leven

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