NYC’s experimental cello sorceress, Alice Does Computer Music (aka Alice Gerlach), is back with a brand-new full-length called ‘Bliss,’ dropping August 8th via Jolt Music and Prolonged Ah. And just like the title suggests, the record floats in that slippery space between ecstasy and unease—four sprawling compositions that bend sound, space, and memory into something totally unclassifiable, but entirely felt.
The first taste is here now in the form of lead single The candle of eternity burns for all, a lush, surreal odyssey born from a commission to make 10 minutes of audio for a radio show. Instead of stopping there, Gerlach realized they were sitting on an entire world of sounds that could be stitched together into a broader vision. The single’s accompanied by a video and acts as the emotional and sonic genesis for the rest of ‘Bliss’.
“I mostly recorded and produced this track in the back of my Honda Fit while I was on tour,” Gerlach shares. “That was towards the end of an emotionally tumultuous and transformative period of my life. I was feeling very lost. When I listen to this track now it reminds me of how messy transformation feels when you’re in the middle of it.”
And while Candle might begin in the fog, it eventually bursts into brilliant light: cello swells, glitched-out vocals like coded prayers, breakbeats spiraling into oblivion. That emotional whiplash is very much the point.
A Personal Mythology Told Through Found Sound and Phantom Memories
Bliss isn’t your usual collection of tracks—it’s four self-contained worlds built from memory scraps and sonic mirages. Think: glass crunching in an abandoned Pennsylvania resort, fireworks sizzling in an Austin parking lot, train yard echoes captured during a solar eclipse. These are Gerlach’s “sound souvenirs”—literal snapshots of the year they spent drifting between NYC and everywhere else.
This time around, Gerlach is pushing back against algorithm-fed listening habits. After scrapping their streaming service accounts entirely, they fell back in love with MP3 players—random shuffles, weird deep cuts, the joy of the unexpected. That philosophy seeps into the DNA of ‘Bliss,’ which ditches Spotify et al. and will be available only via Bandcamp, Nina Protocol, YouTube, vinyl, and cassette.
If you loved Shoegaze 5G, prepare to be pulled even deeper into the rabbit hole.
What Does Bliss Sound Like?
It’s a shape-shifter. Each track is its own terrain:
- Keepsake plays like a haunted echo of past selves. Loops unravel, reform, and stumble through glitched-out parasite lectures and disintegrating cello spirals.
- Sigil slips further into dream-logic. Here, windchimes and crunching leaves rub elbows with warped orchestral flourishes and hazy vocal incantations.
- Train yard, the closer, captures a conversation with friends under starlight, glimmering synths, and a sudden left-turn into noise-rock catharsis—a final exhale after the long trip inward.
The deeper you sink into ‘Bliss,’ the more its internal rhythm begins to make sense. It’s messy, yes, but also kind of sacred in how earnestly it maps the mess.
“I think the word bliss has a very fleeting quality and it’s also a bit transcendental,” Gerlach says. “Like you really have to trust and accept the present moment exactly as it is in order to get there.”
‘Bliss’ track list
- The candle of eternity burns for all
- Keepsake
- Sigil
- Train yard
Formats: Vinyl, Cassette, Bandcamp, Nina Protocol, YouTube (no major DSPs)
Stay locked in: alicedoescomputermusic.com
Watch the video + get your first listen to The candle of eternity burns for all now.
This one’s for the wanderers, the glitch-lovers, and anyone who’s ever hit “shuffle” and found their whole life reflected back in static.
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