Flumergex is delighted to announce the release of our new album of alternative electronica, Synthetic.
This is a really exciting milestone for us, because Synthetic is the third album we’ve released within just the past twelve months. (I say “we” and “us” but of course you know that Jesse wrote all the songs, performed and sequenced all the instruments and vocals and whatnot, produced and mixed the recordings, wrote all the marketing copy, and cooked dinner too.)
The basic tracks for this project were recorded as part of longer jam sessions with a couple of synthesizers and a drum machine. Those lengthy recordings were edited down into the backing tracks for the 8 songs that made it onto the album. Smith then layered overdubs of guitars, vocals, and additional keyboards to weave a lush and ever-shifting sonic texture.
The track list is:
- Proof of Concept
- Imaginary Monsters
- Craving Synthetics
- In Search of Synthetics
- Retinal Scans
- A Little Understanding
- Synthetic
- Scratchy Excellence
Total running time is about half an hour. “Proof of Concept” and “In Search of Synthetics” are instrumentals. All the rest of the songs have words; but these words are not the sort of soul-searching epic poetry that Smith has composed for some of his previous songs; but instead, the lyrics of the album Synthetic are more like repeated rhythms of sound and melody, woven into the overall sonic texture to enhance the mood of the music.
Explains Smith, “The whole concept of synthetics started out as just, you know, wanting to get a synthesizer to round out the Flumergex sound, basically; and so that concept worked its way into the title of some of the songs, like ‘Craving Synthetics’ and ‘In Search of Synthetics.’ And I thought of it kind of like an adventure story, where you had to run away from ‘Imaginary Monsters’ and go on some sort of hero’s quest or challenge where maybe it’s like a spy movie where you have to gain access to some kind of a super-secure facility with ‘Retinal Scans.'”
“But,” Smith continues, “as I continued working on the project, the idea of ‘Synthetics’ took on a darker double meaning of referring to synthetic people: especially, like, you know, people whose actions don’t match their words, for example; and so the title track in particular ended up exploring that whole sort of secret side of human behavior in our modern culture. I think overall, the album has a thematic approach that considers the implications of our new technology in this unfolding modern era, when so many of us suddenly live so much of our social lives online through the social media, where it’s often very difficult for average users to distinguish automated accounts and AI chatbots from real people: so you end up with your feed full of these computer-generated synthetic people who aren’t even real human beings at all.”
The official release date for Synthetic was Valentine’s Day 2025, but our distributor tells us it will take a couple days for the new listing to appear on all the various streaming and digital download platforms; so if you don’t see it yet, please search it again in the next day or two.
Rock on, everybody! Stay real.