Music Review // Frank Cogliano "Computers of the World"

 

https://frankcogliano.bandcamp.com/album/computers-of-the-world

One of my favorite misconceptions about music is that it's all made with computers and so when you have an album full of electronics, such as Frank Cogliano has created here, it is thought that the artist would just push a button to get a certain sound and it was all rather easy.   Believe me, as someone who has tried doing just that, this music is not easy to create but I do enjoy that this album is called "Computers of the World" because I think of it as being a nod to that notion that all music will be created by computers one day as well.

Frank Cogliano has such an interesting sound.  It immediately reminds me of something I might hear on Full Spectrum.   With synth slips and audio clips, the first song births big fun beats.  There is certainly a specific era of instrumental -wave musicians, from the early to mid-2000's, such as Com Truise, and Frank Cogliano would have stood out with them back then.   This also brings about the idea of this being vaporwave, synthwave or some sort of -wave and I'm not entirely opposed to that.

With swirls, this album can go from video games with nice bass lines to Knight Rider all within the same song.   At times it can feel like we're flipping through radio stations and "Pet Ghost" just feels blurry.   "Light" has expanding bass synth in it while "Images" has those drops.  Throughout the album you will find voices (as the song "Voices" suggests) but they are usually manipulated and audio clips not clearly heard.   As we reach the end, there is a simply stellar guitar riff on "Peace 1" which reminds me of "Lean On Me".

The two biggest factors that I always feel need to be true when it comes to instrumental electronic music such as this is that it cannot be boring and it should sound like something.  Every song on this album has its own personality, which is great because a lot of times these songs tend to run together, but even more so what I enjoy is that the songs aren't just there without words as the music itself can sing.   This is a rather unique sound presented here and everyone should hear it.