Futurist is an alt-rock, psychedelic pop band formed in Brooklyn and developed in Austin and Los Angeles. Through experimentation, a multimedia vision, and energetic delivery, Futurist creates a wall of sound that ignites audiences with their style and modern mythology. With appeal for both lovers of space-age and vintage, Futurist is influenced by legends like Flaming Lips, Pink Floyd, Arctic Monkeys, Radiohead, My Morning Jacket, and Spoon. The band is known for its associations with folklore and psychedelia, with elements of this culture inspiring the group's instrumentation, effects, and composition. Futurist’s new album “Omens” is out now and available on all major streaming platforms.
Offering up over forty minutes of raw, at the moment rock composition, instrumental and experimental yet lost in the groove in a hypnotic manner, “Omens” is undoubtedly a thing of artistry and well worth a listen. The intro track “Slow Motion” takes it’s time to envelop you, showcasing a band in no rush to simply grab attention with a quick riff or a single idea, but rather, a band who are more than happy losing themselves in the moment and letting the music guide them. As a result, listeners can effectively and fully lose themselves in the moment too. As always, Futurist’s music showcases a touch of Pink Floyd inspired structuring and guitar work, the thickness of the beat in “Bad Air, Still Water” adds a fairly epic and dramatic rhythm, however mellow in pace. As the song progresses, there’s a unique and interesting soundscape that comes into play, almost electronic sounding on occasion, offering up just snippets of notes half tapped to exemplify the rising intensity.
“Body Bag (Tied to a Stone)” adds an element of brightness in terms of the musical mood. The melody captivates as a few notes rise up and fall back down to layout the personal story-line. A hint of lightness follows later and helps build an interesting structure. “Olive Mountain” afterward leads with more entrancing riffs and quickly captures your affection for its fine balancing between the quick and the mellow. An easy favorite for the simple yet still huge hook section. The simplicity allows for creative freedoms with smooth guitar and punching vocals. The structure of “All I Ever Wanted” is a huge part of what makes it captivate you as you listen. The switch from the verse to the chorus alone hits with striking impact, and it’s a chorus that works. It drives that title, that concept, with emotion and a somewhat theatrical sort of power. The accompanying music, the developing instrumentation, and the varying melodies, all support and enhance the sentiment perfectly. The musical atmosphere of “It’ll Make Sense When You’re Older” allows you to escape, allows your mind to wander, to really consider these ideas and attempt to come to some sort of conclusion as to what it all means and how it relates to oneself. This is when music or lyricism, in particular, gets interesting, when it stems from personal experience, yet it reaches out and connects with various other pathways, various other individuals, who then form their own stories and thoughts within it.
Eclecticism is definitely a part of this project, you get a feel for the progression, the voices, the style, the subject matter. The band has something that’s theirs, and it’s exciting, to say the least. “Crazy Eights” is a good example of a song that veers off in a different direction, laying out a mellow backdrop, balancing chaos and calmness, adding to the ambiance with distant vocal melodies. The beat and the riffs work beautifully when everything falls away the moment is perfectly fit for consumption as a go-to source of escapism. Futurist’s musicianship is also really well highlighted here, on top of their arrangement and production efforts. “Born on Fire” follows on beautifully and compliments the process even further. You grow more connected to the band and their work as the album moves along, particularly as things start to head back towards the fiery depths of creative psychedelics. A live-sounding scene that totally draws you into the center of the expression.
“Harakiri” offers another fairly low-key, down-tempo moment of deep-thinking reflection. The vocal delivery appears quite haunting and considerate alongside the guitar sound, as does the sky of instrumentation lingering behind it all. The words hit with poetic realness and meaning. “Behold! (Lullaby for the End of Days)” has an indescribable yet familiar vibe to it that’s present from its opening notes all the way to the very end of this nearly six-minute-long track. To simply describe it as psychedelic doesn’t do Futurist justice, as they expertly mix genres and layer track upon track of intricate melodies to create a lush soundscape that engulfs the listener. There aren’t too many bands or artists creating in such a free manner these days, free from concern or time limits, unaffected by the outside. When you combine that level of purity with impressive musicianship and a shared desire to escape or create escapism for an audience, the results can be superb. Enter Futurist, a band truly intent on building that kind of sound and experience for their listeners.
Listen to “Omens” here and read more with Futurist below!
Welcome back to BuzzMusic Futurist! We're completely captivated by your sound--you have such a strong yet warming presence throughout your tracks. Can you tell us more about your intentions when you first began to curate your recent album “Omens”?
We’ve gone through a lot of changes since our first album, so my intention was to really solidify a new sound for the current band and our future trajectory and Omens was the product of that venture. Our first record was very innocent and optimistic and I think the realities and wisdom that have come from another decade of life have helped shape the sound of the record. We still have that lighthearted spark, but there is a darker undertone, tinged with some of the life lessons I’ve undergone on a personal level as well as the duality and division that I see out in the world more so today than ever. The ‘omens’ are neither good nor bad, but they are the underlying messages and symbols for what’s to come.
“Slow Motion” is the perfect track to open up your recent album. Where did you draw inspiration for this particular track?
The opening line is “it’s a slow flow, like luck and gold.” Touching a bit more on what I said before, Slow Motion is a song about progress, success, and the sacrifice it takes to manifest the kind of dreams and ideas that I have at the core of my personal passions. I think I had this idea that recording, performing, and ’succeeding’ in music would be a whole lot easier than it is, which sort of speaks to the naiveté of our first record. Slow Motion is about all of the personal sacrifice and work that is built into the artistic process of actualizing something that hasn’t ever been before.
What's the most integral element to your music that you find is always integrated into every track you create?
Earnest songwriting and lyricism. I can't help but say how I really feel in my music and even though the style and genre of the music are constantly evolving, the one thing I can definitely see over and over again is ... what I said when I said it, I meant.
Many of the tracks on the album are intensely lyrical. What track on your new project do you think forced you to channel to most emotions? Why?
That’s a tough one to answer because they are all different emotions. However, I think that Crazy Eights is the most emotional one for me. It’s a song about being misunderstood, no matter how hard you tried to make the connection. That despair in knowing things are out of your control inspired a lot in me. It was also the first song I finished lyrically of the record, so it did set a tone, although not overtly.
What's the next move for you artistically? Are you playing any shows in the near future to promote “Omens”?
Yes! Stay tuned. You can visit our site www.futuristnow.net. We intend on having a lot of shows over 2020 and you are going to want to see and hear our new lineup and sound. And shhhhhh. We also have another album slated for the spring of 2021.