Bugskull releases new album Collapsed View, streams first track

Bugskull releases new album Collapsed View, streams first track

Sean Byrne, Bugskull’s éminence grise, has announced a new album, Collapsed View. The LP is the band’s second release since its reactivation in 2009 following a seven-year hiatus, though Bugskull’s current incarnation is by and large a Sean Byrne solo project. In contrast with the group’s copious 90s output, Bugskull has released just two albums in the past five years: Communication in 2009 and Hidden Mountain in 2012. Collapsed View is being touted as a return to Communication’s template, itself a “lost sequel” to Bugskull’s last album before their extended break.

Sometimes a band, some other times a solo venture, Bugskull’s been active since the early 90s, with Sean Byrne as the sole constant member. Based in Portland, the band’s most frequent collaborators were Brendan Bell and James Yu, whose participation used to be signaled by the addition of umlauts to the group’s name: Bügsküll. Through their prolific and interesting career, the band’s music is characterized by a collage of noise, found sounds, fresh beats, a lo-fi aesthetic, and charming melodies; a cocktail as epicurean and eerie as the Bugskull name suggests. Their first LP Phantasies & Senseitions (1994) and Distracted Snowflake volumes 1 (1997) and 2 (1999) are some of the band’s career highlights.

Collapsed View promises to stay faithful to Byrne’s “abstraction with a human side” modus operandi, offering a mixture of breezy acoustic tracks, droney electronic pieces, plenty of ambient explorations, and even a Neu!-aping cut like “Icarus Rising,” which you can hear below.

The album is out now via Digitalis Recordings.

Collapsed View tracklisting:

01. Heaven/California
02. Olde Growth
03. Billow
04. Icarus Rising
05. Demapped
06. Druids
07. Collapsed View
08. Victory Lapse

• Bugskull: http://www.bugskull.com
• Digitalis Industries: http://digitalisindustries.com

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