Rodney Cromwell – Opus Three Remixes

By RingMaster Review on May 3, 2022 • ( 0 )

With his new album working its rich temptation since its recent unveiling, London indietronic artist RODNEY CROMWELL presents its latest single in a new remixes rich EP. The song, Opus Three, proved a potent incitement within Memory Box and as part of another vibrant offering provides another ear inciting lure the way of Cromwell’s highly enjoyable full-length.

RODNEY CROMWELL (the nom de plume Adam Cresswell) has a history of grabbing keen attention, through indie-folktronica band Saloon which he founded and as one half of acclaimed electronic duo Arthur & Martha. Equally his solo work has drawn eager praise with Memory Box his most successful yet, a rich reason why obvious with the track/single Opus Three.

A song conceived as a love-letter to a lost synthesizer, the Moog Opus Three, the dancefloor inciting Opus Three was also inspired by Anna Kavan’s surreal novel Ice and conjures the story of “two lovers on the brink of apocalypse, separated by distance, lost in time.” Its air is dystopian yet movement lively and inspiriting, temptation and hope soaking its romance of sound and an animated stroll in deceit to its apocalyptic premise.

There was no escaping its heady influence on feet and body movement nor the rapacious manipulation of the Roman Angelos‘ Extended Dance Mix of the song. Woven by Memory Box producer Richard Bennett under his recording moniker, the track instantly sends tendrils and pulsations of temptation through the listener’s instincts to move. Its persistent bubbliness and manipulation was similarly and hungrily under the skin from those first seconds and as a dancehall protagonist will surely see plenty of floorboards eagerly pounded.

The track also sees remixes from Dublin synthpop artist Circuit3 and brothers Dan and Jacob Mayfield, a.k.a. Field Glass who recently also signed with Happy Robots Records who release Cromwell’s creations. The first has an eighties flavouring to its interpretation, a vison where shadows and the song’s natural light collude and dance in spirals of ethereal tempting. Equally though there is an almost futuristic hue to the vision cast which more than teased the imagination.

The Field Glass take is like a view of the song from within another dimension, certainly a place with its own particular veils of ambience and suggestion to contemplate. It is a mesmeric proposal, crystalline in its structure and again ethereal in its breath and, with its body persistently looming closer from an initial distance, captivatingly dramatic.

The EP also provides an evocative instrumental in Perception Management, a piece of music which again with an apocalyptically viewing eye portrays a space of atmospheric intrigue and portentous beauty. Yet it is a fascinating, imagination provoking realm conjured by Cromwell; a momentary glimpse into a dark future and its uncompromising possibilities.

The Opus Three Remixes EP is a fine companion to Memory Box but also an adventure and exploration into Cromwell’s imagination by others with theirs; a pleasure easy to recommend.

Opus Three Remixes is out now via Happy Robots Records; available @ https://rodneycromwell.bandcamp.com/album/opus-three