VANGELIS RIDES AGAIN

2015 release, the ninth album from Marshmallow Coast AKA Andy Gonzales. This Elephant Six alumni (of Montreal, Music Tapes, Mind Brains) never stops writing. Some people are in it for the money, some people are in it for the drugs. Andy Gonzales is in it for the music. In a career of stylistic left-turns and singular talent, Vangelis Rides Again is the most singular, affecting record in the career of Marshmallow Coast, a brittle prog-pop wasteland that leaves the listener weeping and numb. Everything sounds like it emerged from an empty late-night hotel lounge in decline, a dark sense of urgency delivered in a laid-back style. It's the end of the world as seen through pharmaceutical gauze. It's the most mysterious and moving record of an inscrutable career, a record as unique and warm and captivating as an unread suicide note at the bottom of a shoebox. Vangelis Rides Again sounds like it was made in those early morning glacial hours, that Venn diagram of wakefulness and dreaming-or was it a nightmare, the most haunting time of the night, the most haunting time of your life.