Arp, New Pleasures
This second chapter in Arp’s ZEBRA trilogy advances the narrative he
began with 2018’s acclaimed ZEBRA (The Guardian’s n°2 Contemporary
Album of The Year, The Vinyl Factory’s #41 of the year).
A prismatic inquiry into memory, machine sentience and the economy of
desire, New Pleasures is canny and time bending, equal parts meta-Pop
and open-minded experimentalism.
The trilogy’s opening statement, ZEBRA presented a kind of dawn on a
nascent, Edenic landscape — meditatively cadenced, multi-layered, geological
in its approach to time — ultimately, speaking to an open sense of possibility.
New Pleasures fast-forwards a few centuries at the very least, locating us in
a post-Industrial sprawl. Imbued with the flinty glow of Commerce, the sleek
mechanized rhythms of Industrialization, the minimal finesse of Brutalism, and
the commentary and erotic mystery of Sci Fi, the result is multidirectional and
evocative.
Defined by a dialectic of theoretical and sensory opposition — human v machine, presence v absence, meta v the immediate, hot v cool, electronic
v folkloric, economic v erotic — New Pleasures runs amok amidst the ruins
of the recent past’s visions of the future, gleaning political ideologies and spiritual deficiencies from the polishes and veneers of our world.
Georgopoulos sculpts rubbery angularities into idiosyncratic, alluring shapes
— nanoscopic, shimmering, chaos-in-control — expanding and contracting song form into innovative new twists and brainteasing sound design.
“Georgopoulos is superb with minutiae. Little gems reveal themselves in
each meticulously recorded track. It feels somehow astral and earthly all
at once.” Pitchfork
“It’s a beautiful, absorbing, enigmatic and unique record, so where Arp can
take this with the third installment is anyone’s guess. It’s a mouthwatering prospect, for sure. But in the meantime, as a stand-alone album,
New Pleasures might just be Georgopoulos’ masterpiece.”
Electronic Sound Albums of the Year, 2022
"Alien overtones are ever present throughout the album, the vintage sounds makes the music feel like an unconsummated vision of the future from the
20th century past." Resident Advisor Best New Electronic Music
“Mercurial art-pop dotted with contrary pulses and unexpected detours.️"
★★★★ Mojo
"New Pleasures is the latest album by Arp (aka the talented Alexis Georgopoulos). It's the icy sequel to his bucolic 2018 album ZEBRA but
hard to place, exactly, where and when this album happens. Paris in 1980?
Los Angeles, yesterday? Somewhere on that crossfade. Today it sounds to
me like a svelte 38 minutes of nu-rubber-soul, chromed electro, cosmic-
erotic-techjazz, or whatever triple-switch-neologistic-plastic best fits
the season's shoe size." Dan Fox
"Alexis Georgopoulos, the electronic musician who records as Arp, sets
up a ping-ponging stereo mix of synthesizers to begin the instrumental
“Eniko” before its contours emerge: a syncopated 4/4 beat, a hopping bass
line, a plinky melody that’s answered by sliding synthesizer tones and programmed drum syncopations. For all the sonic and spatial diversions,
the track holds its shape." The New York Times
"Balearic analogue glory… the kind of album you'd hope Grace Jones was listening to padding around her Ibiza villa in 1983. 'Le Palace" is moody and magnificent while 'Sponge (for Miyake)' is a cosmic jam for the ages. This
album is one to seek out and play repeatedly. Just try prying it from your earbuds this summer!"
DJ Mag
"The album appears to be all about movement, and the standouts are
perhaps those tracks that shake some significant leg."
Ban Ban Ton Ton
"A vivid, deconstructed take on high-definition pop and ethereal psychedelia." XLR8R
