Spectrum
Forever Alien

Logbook

Stardate: 1997. Mission: sonic exploration of the cosmos. Commander: Peter “Sonic Boom” Kember.

Log begins: the engines ignite slowly and the echo of synthesizers fills the cabin. Feels Like I’m Slipping Away welcomes me like a suspended nebula, a bright current that pulls me away from Earth’s gravity. The voice, filtered and distant, sounds like the communication of an alien entity: familiar, yet foreign. Every echo, every reverb, seems to carve out the surrounding space, creating corridors of sound where time stretches and bends.

I proceed towards The Stars Are So Far (How Does It Feel?). I immediately recognize the theme: it’s the old Spacemen 3 track, reinterpreted through the prism of a parallel universe. The melody is pared down to the essential, while synthesizers and feedback transform the song into a true vehicle for cosmic exploration. This isn’t nostalgia, it’s evolution: the original track becomes a portal towards new sonic dimensions.

Every section of the album—from Delia Derbyshire to Owsley, from Matrix to The New Atlantis—is a sector to be explored. Some seem static, suspended in space, but it’s precisely this suspension that builds the alien atmosphere. Tiny details—oscillations, distant echoes, pulses of synthesizers—become guiding stars, while any earthly sense of orientation fades away. Kember isn’t seeking applause; he wants the listener’s mind to become a spacecraft itself, ready to drift without a dock.

The entire album demands surrender. There are no choruses to bring us back to Earth, no canonical structures: just a continuous flow of sounds, streams of sonic currents that modulate mood and perception. Some tracks might seem abstract or repetitive, but it’s exactly this consistency, this insistent call to drift, that makes Forever Alien coherent and powerful. Every listen is a new experience, like discovering a galaxy that changes every time you gaze at it.

End of mission: Forever Alien remains one of the most visionary works in electronic psychedelia. It’s an album for those who want to lose themselves in space, for those who seek a mental experience rather than a melodic one. Put on your headphones, turn off the outside world and let the music transport you: the return won’t be immediate, and you will not come back unchanged.

Mission score: 9/10 – interstellar journey completed, with no possibility of returning the same.