EXPO 70

— First review of this album —

This bonus EP, Infinite Macrocosm, was released with the album Sonic Messenger, both featuring beautiful artwork. Honestly, between this bonus disc and the actual album, I greatly prefer this bonus EP. The stoner rock psychedelia element is gone here, which is a definite plus in my opinion, making this album much more experimental electronic than psych- kraut-doom. The main sound on this EP is still entirely droney, but the resonating and buzzing spirals very loudly at the listener, creating a devastating force of planetary destruction sounding like the boom of a distant planet being destroyed by a massive meteor. The instrumentation is computers and severely down-tuned guitars that creep, buzz, and explode, and is surprising effective in what it actually accomplishes.

I'm not too familiar with a lot of Expo 70's work, but if there is more of this in their catalog then count me in. I'll be a fan for a while. Much better than Sonic Messenger, with superior cosmic atmosphere achieved.

— First review of this album —

Expo 70 makes experimental progressive electronic music of the drone and ambient variety, coated in a fair amount of krautrock fuzz, and Sonic Messenger stays true to that schema. This albums is very, very slow, moving at nearly glacial speeds. From the album cover, you'd probably expect this album to be very spacey, but it actually isn't so much. It's more organic and psychedelic than experimental and spacey, and actually gets pretty boring. Whenever I listen to this album, I get a big stoner rock vibe (it gets fairly sludgy and heavy). I'm not really a fan of psychedelic stoner rock, and I especially don't like it if it is slow and boring. But, I can see how fans of both psychedelic stoner rock and some krautrock would find this album to be enjoyable.

I want to like this album, because I like both krautrock and progressive electronic, but this album is so long and boring. I feel like I could only seriously recommend this album to krautrock fans with an extreme amount of patience.

Expo 70 is a sensational minimal-neo krautrockin' project of the guitarist Justin Wright. Exquisite Lust figures among the first recordings but directly reveals Wright's unique musical signature. His sound universe is focused on dense-moving dronescapes mainly built on very low frequencies, electro-loops, guitar's echoing patterns and atonal vibes. This is really sonorous stuff with huge, massive spherical electric frequencies and deep resonances. All musical paintings are evocative and luminously cinematic. The moving drone textures play with extended, circular time and subtle micro-changes. These epic compositions are really immersive and hauntingly absorbing. Exquisite Lust is an astonishing cerebral and phenomenological trip which investigate the liminal (marginal) spaces of the sensorial / sensitive experience. it achieves a balance between lubugrious-desolate moods and eternal dreaminess (obtained by dynamic and buzzing guitar leads). The instrumentation expressively capture the essence of mystical-trance (like) communication. Exquisite Lust is an essential and playful adventurous drone rockin album. With albums as Mystical amplification or Animism, Justin Wright will carry on the exploration of singular micro-tonal genealogies. Highly recommended for fans of krautrock nihilism, early US minimalism and dark (industrial) ambient.