Reality Goggles: Rememberer – “fractured psychedelia”

Following up his 2019 EP, Picturesque Industrial Wasteland, Liverpool’s Nick Hunt reignites his Reality Goggles project with Rememberer.

Brother of Andrew PM Hunt (Dialect, Land Trance), Nick (who, earlier this year, featured on trumpet during the Aging ~ Land Trance collaboration, Embassy Nocturnes) is also an artist who clearly doesn’t like to remain creatively idle.

After the release of Andrew’s latest Dialect album, Under ~ Between, (also in 2021), Nick returns serve with his own interpretations of fractured psychedelia with Rememberer.

Whilst dubbed as “bleak psychedelia made of trumpets, half-broken electronics and scuzzy drum loops,” there’s a surprising warmth that Hunt conjures up during these five compositions. If anything, it’s a timely welcome leading into the winter.

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Mixed by his brother and mastered by Stephen Kerrison at Liverpool’s Tall Trees Mastering, Hunt starts off with Call – a grinding composition that melds cinematic murmurs with Eastern psychedelia.  

With splintered keys and motorik drones, Hunt continues to scour the globe for influences, with hip-hop (Ghosting) and jazz (Fives) slowly bubbling beneath the surface. On the latter, if one images Miles Davis noodling around in the studio during the Sketches of Spain sessions then they wouldn’t be too far off the mark.  

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And the surprises keep coming. Masked in muted static, the title track almost takes its cue from Godspeed You Black Emperor’s Providence, as the slow-motion sound waves evoke a heart melting emotional intensity.  

This leads into the final frontier, Spirit of the Stairs. Once again, Hunt is truly immersed in a tourism of sound. With bleeps and loops, this is less like electronica through the misty reds and yellows of an abandoned airport hangar and more like watching the sun slowly rise from behind barren mountains.

Whilst Hunt’s trumpet playing is the undoubted winner during Rememberer, it’s the cracked cinematic backdrops of sound that add the vital touch to these compositions. The end result is elusively striking, to the point where both artist and listener have stumbled across something assuredly unique.

Rememberer is out now. Purchase from Bandcamp.