Compositions that threaten to move you to tears don’t come around all too often, but the searing sublimity within Methyl Orange’s latest cinematic electronica score, Caught in Thought, nearly pushed me over the brink.
Through the kind of composition that pulls every one of your hidden emotions to the forefront, Nick Wall distinguishes himself as a composer instead of a mere producer. The way he charges his orchestrally cut progressions with rushes of emotion, almost as though he has presented you with a diorama of everything fragile and beautiful in your inner world and encased it within a plaintive vulnerability, gives the landscape of his sonic design far more than visual imagery to contend with. The evolving synths and guitars reach straight into the emotional core.
Adding to the emotive intensity of the release, there’s an apocalyptic glow to Caught in Thought; splinters of material reality seem to drift around as detritus in the mix, rather than just harbingering the audience as so many artists are inclined to do in our renaissance of existentialism era.
Methyl Orange has released music since 2017, absorbing inspiration from Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream alongside the cinematic influence of John Carpenter, so it is little surprise he’s such a cultivated instrumental storyteller.
It is releases like this that make me proud to be a Mancunian; you can keep your Ladchester hits, I’ll take Mancinema in the form of Methyl Orange instead.
Caught in Thought is now available to stream on all major platforms, including SoundCloud.
Review by Amelia Vandergast
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