Cambridge-based electronic producer LateNightBeatFeast has just released their latest album, Transmission Seven, a 12-track project inspired by science fiction and film soundtracks.
The release follows on from the producer’s previous albums, including Variance, released last year, and Hallucinate Intelligence, and is accompanied by three interconnected music videos – for the tracks Moondust, Determinism and Nucleus – that enhance the overall immersive experience.
To coincide with the launch of the new album on 7 July, 909originals chatted to LateNightBeatFeast about how the project came together.
Thanks for talking to 909originals. How would you best describe your sound, and also your new album, Transmission Seven?
Electronica and downtempo would probably be the closest overarching genres, although I quite liked ‘Wall of Sounds’ as a description, which I used as a track title on a previous album.
The title Transmission Seven came after a moment of inspiration from hearing Brian Cox talking about the ‘Wow Signal’ received in the 1970s, which then evolved into themes from science fiction, which were an inspiration to both music and video.
You incorporate various different styles, from lo-fi ambient to vaporware to post-industrial techno – would it be fair to say that you don’t want to be pigeonholed into one genre?
Yes, that’s fair to say – the idea of taking sounds that don’t necessarily belong in the same genre and processing them to work together is something I’ve used a few times, which contributed to the genre blending fluidity of the album.
Several tracks on the album – particularly the stand-out track for us, Determinism – are reminiscent of movie soundtracks. To what degree did you have that soundtrack approach in mind when creating the album?
Film soundtracks have always been a inspiration to me, with a great admiration of the ability for film composers to elevate a sequence to a new level. For me, pushing to interconnect the tracks to flow together, whilst still aiming for each to build to a peak within itself was the challenge.
The three interconnected music videos accompanying Transmission Seven form a narrative arc. What is the story about?
I’ve tried to use similar themes for each albums music videos: the first ones being over-processing of the track titles, moving into split screen edits and music visualisers, but this time I wanted to link them more directly with the music, so they are based around ideas that inspired the album: multiple timelines of possible alien contact, space exploration: colonising the Moon, triggering an ancient artefact which terraforms Mars, leading into the discovery of an unstable alien spacewreck.
How has your approach to music evolved since your previous releases, Variance and Hallucinate Intelligence? Is there a ‘thread’ of sorts that links the current album with your previous work?
I think this album has pushed further into a cinematic feel, but still plays on the retro futurism that’s been the backbone of the soundscape.
You used both analogue and digital equipment to record the album. What are some essential pieces of kit in your arsenal?
My Minimoog and 303 clones are still favourites, Cherry Audio fills in for soft synths, Rhodes and pianos in Kontakt, all usually running through Soundtoys plug-ins, held together in Cubase.
Looking beyond this release, how do you envision LateNightBeatFeast evolving as a project in the coming years? Are there ambitions to scale into installations, interactive media, or live projects?
Always up for a collaboration, given the cinematic feel of this album: film and visual media would be good choices, or live projects with synced visualisations would be great to do.
Thanks to LateNightBeatFeast for talking to us. Check out Transmission Seven here.
Tracklisting
1 – Transmission Seven
2 – Mooniest
3 – Project Nucleus
4 – Quiescent
5 – Determinism
6 – Decision
7 – Interdeterminism
8 – Euclidean Space
9 – Null Infinity
10 – Luminiferous Aether
11 – Apparent Horizon
12 – Gravitational Abyss
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