Expansive ideas characterized Psychic Reality’s (aka Leyna Noel) Vibrant New Age, but as is so often the case, a discussion lauding “ideas” ultimately stems from such attempts at cohesiveness falling short. Though only one song breached six minutes, the album’s willful experimentation dragged perceived time far longer than the ticker trended toward zero. Thankfully, on her newest release, Chassis, the flashes of brilliance sustain themselves whilst nestled in newfound pop structures and defined divisions between singer and synths.
The murky definitions of what “psychic reality” is (i.e. the Freudian concept) essentially rest on one crucial division: psychic reality links to the unconscious or inner self, while objective reality is associated with the conscious or external self. Strangely, as Noel has shifted to a more externally-accepted sound, the internal value of Chassis is greater than previous Psychic Reality releases. To wit: the psych-calypso “Island” whisks the listener to the mystical, idyllic titular island by evoking warming breezes and should-be-experienced-once heat delusions by keeping the central instruments that began the song repeating the same pattern throughout. This seemingly simple decision allows for the album’s greatest asset, Noel’s voice, to command the myriad homes created by each of Chassis’ songs. Nowhere is this more evident than on the album’s standout, pre-released single “Wet On Wet”. One of the year’s best songs, the muted drums and singular synth notes create an audio gradient upon which her megaphone-strained voice pulsates dream-like primal cries and classically-trained croons without distinguishable words, excepting a close listen. Such is where Chassis excels, when Noel’s presence defeats that of the machinery behind her, where her sound is the dominant one.
When the album lingers for excitement, however, it truly waits. The best psych-pop and synth-pop releases all exist with some degree of differentiation to their songs, where the value of a singer shoves ambient instrumentals away for a rainier day. Exemplifying this perfectly is album opener “Life Is Long”, a prescient title for the 5:20 run-time, allowing for the peaks and valleys of Chassis to impress themselves. The longing “I want to take you home” would make for a great hook if allowed the chance to extend across the song’s tenure, but a preference for reverting to Super Monkey Ball 2-esque synths elicits not video game nostalgia but partial annoyance at knowing what could be, but is anything but, in this space. Removing these missteps entirely, the industrial “Bambini Art” hearkens back to Vibrant New Age’s intertwining of her voice with the instruments, rather than layering it above them entirely, to such an effect that it warrants a spin during the humid bacchanals of summer.
This relationship with Noel’s voice to the instruments undoubtedly decides the quality. Understanding the philosophy of vagueness, the field concerning itself with boundaries and borderline cases in defining terms and, to the extent of some, objects, is helpful to evaluating the unique sound produced by Psychic Reality. On Vibrant New Age, the differentiation of Noel to her synths was undoubtedly vague; the twisting, metallic melding of all sonic sources into one cohesive unit made pinpointing any definable boundaries impossible. When Chassis soars, it’s because Noel bares her voice opposing the music behind her. For a name and a sound associated with subconscious effects, entering the conscious world yields objective results.