TesseracT
Altered State

Music everywhere. Like a coaster for a poor vintage wine. Forgotten in a fridge, but the owner hasn't noticed it has expired. I rinse in the washing machine and hear money, money. I turn off the washing machine, but nothing. Still, money, money. Like a mosquito flying menacingly, but it can't be pinpointed and yet manages to bite me. Bam! Missed. I have a solution: I put on the headphones. At full volume, the outside world is gone, I am inside the music, I am music. My music. What do I put on? No doubt.

I'm a surrogate

I'm archetypal and itinerant

I'm your excuse to long

For a superior

I will undertake

I will overcome

Tesseract makes progressive music, but from that genre, they take the best part, which is the compositional freedom combined with elegant solutions. What they discard instead is the complexity of prog, that thing where if you get distracted for a moment, it's best to start over. And by doing so, they keep you glued to their second album “Altered State,” which moves on djent rhythmic bases but explores spaces where boundaries are not defined by subsequent definitions. Just like in the title, Altered State, the notes expand into ethereal atmospheres, where subconscious ghosts bounce between irrational tempos and sudden slowdowns. While Ashe O'Hara's voice breaks that harmonic construction just enough to enhance it. It rises, but it's not mere exhibition. Ashe runs through our souls with enlightened grace. But even when he's not there, as in "Calabi You2, with its sax twirl, the altered world continues to shape step by step, finding space in our memory as if it were Orwell's dystopian world with the inner depth of Stanislaw Lem. I will not mention other tracks, 'Altered State,' demands without demanding to be listened to in its entirety. Like a great story, it will drag you where time and space...

The smartphone battery is dead. The mosquito is still there. Money, money. No problem, now it's all clear. I take the flashlight, the keys. I go down the stairs. And on every floor. Money, money. Finally, I find myself in front of a skull and a lightning bolt. I lower the lever. Silence. Throughout the building. And it's just the beginning.