With a post-apocalyptic sigh, The Foundry Field Recordings passive/ aggressively usher in a desolate future through streaming, lo-fi melancholy pop. Broken by lost airwave transmissions, their album Prompts/Miscues beautifully signifies an end of an age of innocent expansion, with calm, ethereal ballads, waiting for the fallout to settle. Songs of war raids blanket halcyon days, painting a moving scene of sun-lit annihilation.
Schuh’s disconnected, haunting vocals solemnly narrate though wispy, funereal melodies. The refrain of "Warning Raids over Kiev" flirts with bliss, but flips the script, claiming ("We’re happy/To give it all back"). Feathery acoustic guitars underline reposeful solo waves in "Assembled Hazardly".
The most up-tempo track, "Holding The Pilots/Holding The Facts" rises on a galloping beat and cynical optimism as ("Everything’s on fire now/Everything is burning down"). But even from there, the album settles back into a placid, distant rhythm. Even machines can’t escape the struggle in "Spain Never Made It".
"Circuits on Board" finishes the album with a logjam of static transmissions jumbled in the chaos, snapshots of what used to be. As a social lesson, The Foundry Field Recordings serve us with a lush, humanitarian warning. It’s not as stark as our Terror Color chart or as brief as a news report, but an brimming, indie symphonic memo to check ourselves. If we don’t, we’ll all just be casualties.
