Long Distance Poison – Mirror Totality

Long Distance Poison and Moss Archive occupy a similar space in my head; both are beautiful projects, the Brooklyn trio producing elaborate, mote in God’s eye synth compositions, while for its part, the imprint sports beautiful packaging design and boasts an integral catalog. From a distance, the two have an abstract resemblance. I’ve known Moss Archive longer thanks to their distinctive j-card designs, but my introduction to Long Distance Poison came last year via their excellent Gliese Translations LP, a collaborative effort that ultimately grew to involve the likes of Steve Moore and Shawn Parke (our own Paul Simpson premiered a related video). Their second LP for Fin, this was a relatively special release, multi-pronged and more elaborate than their cassette missives on other imprints, though Mirror Totality still distinguishes itself; announced around the same time as a tape for Tusco Embassy (members of a growing confraternity of devout ascetics willing to handle a tape with Ohio’s inimitable free-form nonsense duo, Moth Cock), this is a somewhat different listen, as Moss Archive point out; “Those familiar with LDP’s previous offerings on labels such as Digitalis, VCO, Constellation Tatsu might be surprised by [the] shift from their usual cascade of meditative shadow, to a new sound that pulsates with a seething energy.” Mirror Totality is less a cascade and emergent identity, than it is a dialogue, what Moss Archive describes as “two dense, throbbing synapse clouds,” resolving themselves to their proximity by periodic shift and sortie, though the name of the tape implies they are reflections of the same active impulses. By the end of its slightly lengthier b-side, all competing imagery seems to reach a detente, or at least a more uniform tone, for the track’s closing moments. Order Mirror Totality via the Moss Archive Bandcamp and keep an eye on Long Distance Poison here.