Temporal Waves

Canadian tabla player Shawn Mativetsky has performed and recorded across many genres for the past 25 years, but this is his first album under his new moniker. Don’t let the percussion fool you – there is little South Asian to Temporal Waves except for some rhythmic phrasing and the occasional tihai [thrice-repeated rhythmic phrase]. Instead, the tabla is suffused into vast, cinematic synth-futurism with dubtronic and retro video game edges – think Vangelis and Wendy Carlos playing on an Atari in a Whirl-Y-Gig chill-out room. It’s all guided by a very strong sense of sci-fi aesthetic, from the hi-tech fantasy forest cover art to the synthscapes that toe the edge between optimistic utopia on one side, and menacing dystopia on the other. Temporal Waves isn’t doing anything particularly new or groundbreaking here, but Mativetsky does serve up a big dose of nostalgia: the 80s and 90s vibes are real. And backed up with real experience, according to the press release, as Mativetsky ‘[spent] his youth steeped in the 8-bit timbres of the Atari 400, Nintendo Entertainment System, and early PCs [and] the 1990s saw him actively involved in the DIY electronic music scene.’ Stick this on some bassy speakers and have a blast from futures past.