Metropolitan Opera by Architectural

The title says Opera, the music says drama, my head says "soundtrack to a non-existant film". It sounds clichéd, the harshest critics will agree, but this is undeniably majestic music that wouldn't sound out of place accompanying a breathtaking cinematic event. Seven deeply immersive tracks with sweeping orchestral movements, howling operatic vocals, taut buffeting beats, all teetering on the edge of unrest, a malevolence at once ominous and compelling. The listener, a fragment lost in the midst of an immense situation, with no sway on the outcome. This is atmospheric music built to a grand scale.

The man behind this dystopian work is Juan Rico, aka Architectural, the Spanish Techno producer who, in recent years, has been retreating from the harder Techno he once produced as Reeko, towards a more mature and realised vision. With influences as far reaching as John Carpenter and Art Zoyd to Roly Porter and The Caretaker, this sound has no pigeonhole, category unknown... and that's fine by me.

Metropolitan Opera is out on 27th January via Rico's own Architectural label and follows his Cubismo EP which came out late last year.