Following his eclectic opus ‘A Space For Your Dreams’ (released earlier this year on Vulpiano), Richey Hackett continues on his parallel path as an electronic composer with ‘The Nightmarist’. Richey takes ideas and delves into them, skillfully weaving atmospheres throughout his kaleidoscopic chords: bitcrushed echoes, fizzing electrical signals, distorted percussion, and ambiguous vocal samples.

Themes pervade: of digital consciousness as a spirit that haunts, disturbs, and blesses our synaptic essence, of a parallel plain that melds with an ancient and bone-deep wilderness expressed in our occult – a sort of ‘Life In The Bush of Ghosts’.

This is not to pigeonhole it as merely a dark-cyberpunk-ambient album; there is too much sweetness and pathos. The tones deployed are often sweeping and celestial, with everything from a subliminally disquieting music box waltz to anxious techno; and at various times recalling Vangelis, Burial, and Trent Reznor’s solo work. Yet another display of range and sophistication from Richey Hackett.

Words From The Artist:

“I really enjoyed the challenge of trying my hand at something new with You Are Nothing But Light. So making a second collection of dark ambient music felt only natural and this time I’ve tried to make the pieces even more expressive and cinematic.

I’ve always enjoyed ambient music and how much freedom it gives the listener; I may have composed a track with certain images and emotions in mind, but without lyrics to define those things you leave it much more open to interpretation. And I really like the idea of the listener being able to create their own scenes in their minds using your music as the soundtrack.”