Album Review: Mansionair - Shadowboxer

When you’re describing music as 'otherworldly', what you’re really talking about is a feeling: distance, disorientation, otherness. If an act's described as 'immediate' and 'accessible', the audience might say: “We're so glad they’re doing that.” For music that’s 'otherworldly', we as the audience ask ourselves: “How are they doing that? How are they using mere sounds to make us feel this way?”

This is very much the case with Mansionair. These are pop songs, sure, but there is a journey, there is an enigma, there is an emotion – longing, perhaps? – that carries us through. Alibi is a great example of this. Ostensibly a big, driving dance number it still keeps its distance, leaving us in a state of disquiet, and curiosity. Then there’s Astronaut (Something About Your Love), a pulsing banger equipped with a Daft Punk-style robo-voice. Even that, though, feels like slipping through a door into another dimension. Pleasant; pleasant and slightly uncomfortable. Falling is gentler and more introspective. Though it is still a little alien – like listening to someone read poetry in a language you don’t understand.

It’s a tribute to any artist that they made you feel something. Here, by using their otherworldliness to great effect, Mansionair do so exquisitely. Get this.