Viktor Timofeev’s experimental album is an unsettling ode to digital alienation

Who: Viktor Timofeev, a Latvian-born visual artist and music producer. His latest drop, Palace of Peace & Reconciliation is long-overdue: the compilation was produced between 2012 and 2014, then put on standby after label Lo Bit Landscapes was unexpectedly locked out of its Brooklyn base by New York City building inspectors for a few years. The album seeks to reflect on the idea of the estranged self in a highly digitalised world — which is somewhat fitting, considering the album itself had to be rescued from the jumble of electronics in Lo Bit Landscapes’ long off-limits loft space.

What to expect: a set of six atmospheric, instrumental tracks, with an abundance of guitar riffs distorted by the sounds of everyday life. While opening track “Schaka Manna” feels like a club remix of a broken folk song vinyl, others, such as “Eracing”, are filled with deep, almost celestial-sounding bass.

What they say: “The suite of tracks form a meditative soundtrack to an ancient eon and a crumbling artefact of the electronic era. Laments unto the bitrate gods bend and swirl over estranged networks, fusing forms that feel both mystical and computer-rendered,” label Lo Bit Landscapes told The Calvert Journal. “Listening to Palace of Peace and Reconciliation is like flowing through the mind of a supercomputer at the moment of sentience, experiencing the imagination of a new self-awareness in all its dreamlike aspects.”

Why you should listen: Palace of Peace & Reconciliation is an unsettling journey, but a relatable one too. Put simply, listening to the album feels like being immersed inside a whirring computer, a soundscape that conveys the fast-pace of the digital world. As entrancing and meditative as it is overwhelming, the album forces listeners to pose new questions — not only about the music itself, but about the place of the self in a world overrun by digital communication.