Stray (Unter Null)
"Letting Go"

Label: Alfa Matrix (2012)

Either as Unter Null or Stray, American artist Erica Dunham always stays faithful to the "quality over quantity" motto. She always takes a great deal of pride, attention, care, and patience in her work, never leaving any detail incomplete. 4 years already after the release of the debut album "Abuse By Proxy", it's time for Stray to let it all go... "Letting Go" is a lot darker in content, confirming to us that Stray was neither meant to be a 'light' project, nor was it meant to be 'happy' because Erica's main band Unter Null is actually quite angry and pissed off. Stray kind of reflects the feelings of despair and sadness when that anger wears off. This album is actually a great departure from any of her previous works, it's a lot more polished and full of layered and lush sounding tracks. Emotional piano tunes echo with melodic electronic sequences and get accelerated by pulsing beats and vibrating bass lines led by Erica's half-sung half-spoken poignant vocals. The material is melancholy, bittersweet, and a lot of yearning, needing, wanting, and desiring is involved. It's about feeling disconnected from the rest of the world, from society, from your peers, from your friends, your loved ones, and your family. A track like "Out of Place" kind of sums up that feeling quite well in so many words. Other tracks, such as "No Vacancy", "Let Me Go", are sincere with the idea of not under- standing peoples' actions and words, and feeling frustrated without necessary closure. We will also notice the exciting remake of Unter Null´s "Failure Epiphany" or yet an open reinterpretation of The Flashbulb's "Passage D"...

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