"Blake Lee crafts more than just an album - it’s a cerebral theatre of sound, where tangible memories collide with uncharted visions, blurring the boundaries of reality and imagination."
Ethereal yet grounded, ‘No Sound in Space‘ is the debut release from Blake Lee on KMRU’s record label OFNOT, where the American producer channels the silence of astral infinity through intricate soundscapes that oscillate between thoughtful solitude and cinematic perspective.
The Los Angeles-based composer, known for his collaborations with Lana Del Rey, steps away from his pop persona and into the realms of deep ambient abstraction, crafting a universe in which time unspools and silence speaks volumes.
In this ambitious soundtrack, Lee pays homage to the sci-fi heroes of cinema – evoking the spatial dissonance of Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey‘, the tense atmospheres of Ridley Scott’s ‘Alien‘ and the temporal elasticity of Nolan’s ‘Interstellar‘.
The album is less a linear composition than an unfolding visual score, akin to his sci-fi short film projected directly onto the mind’s eye. ‘No Sound in Space’ embodies this cinematic world-building, drifting through a prism of post-human consciousness that refracts into a surreal scene depicting a crimson-clad, loose-limbed figure navigating the clean geometries of an infinite, white-washed expanse.
Opening with drone-heavy ‘Amor’, the album unveils a polyphony of synthesisers, evoking the sound of New Age pioneers such as American composer Harold Budd, but with a sharper edge. ‘In A Cloud’ maintains the celestial ambience while incorporating a cluster of space-drenched guitars, climaxing into a storm of experimental turbulence.
In contrast, ‘Moving Air’ bathes the audience in a warm, meditative blanket, conducting floating arpeggios to convey weather-build memories. The two versions of ‘Echoplexx’ – pays homage to the tape-delay techniques of Mike Battle – plunging the listener into abstraction, echoes bleed into each other in a shimmering blur of cracked space.
Collaborations on ‘Miura’ and ‘Waiting’ with Nairobi-based sound architect KMRU bring a supernatural, textural depth to the fold, exploring the fertile ground between field recordings and synthetic sound. Their partnership was sparked by a chance encounter in Los Angeles, and their seamless collaboration is evident, grounded in a shared reverence for celestial intelligence.
‘Pan Am’ opens with the evocative hum of train station field recordings, conjuring a sense of dislocation that feels like a glitch in the matrix. Meanwhile, ‘I Can Feel It’ spins a vivid fable where the chirps of feathered creatures merge with the cold resonance of machine-born echoes.
The album climaxes in the gripping final surge of turbulence on ‘EXP’, an ominous sound that drags the listener further into the abyss, leaving them yearning for what lies beyond. With ‘No Sound in Space’, Blake Lee crafts more than just an album – it’s a cerebral theatre of sound, where tangible memories collide with uncharted visions, blurring the boundaries of reality and imagination.
‘No Sound In Space’ is scheduled for release 15 November via OFNOT. Order a copy from Bandcamp.
TRACKLIST
1. Amor
2. In A Cloud
3. Moving Air
4. Echoplexx I
5. Echoplexx II
6. Miura (feat. KMRU)
7. Waiting (feat. KMRU)
8. Pan Am
9. I Can Feel It
10. EXP