Com Truise aka Seth Haley has shared the music video for the song Propagation, which originally premiered earlier this morning on AV Club. The video is a Black Mirror meets The Stepford Wives piece of cinema that helps to visualize the song in a uniquely modern way. It touches on our increasingly dependent relationship with technology in a way that only Com Truise could. Watch the video via Youtube below.
Speaking on the track, Haley says; “Propagation, as defined, is the proliferation of a new concept or idea. in the context of “Iteration”, it’s the main character’s creation of new conceptual selves, new identities to escape oppression, and disbursing those ideas through the space narrative. It’s a wistful space ballad… ”
Com Truise continues on his Fall tour alongside LA beat scene stalwart Nosaj Thing.
10.02 Richmond, VA @ The Broadberry
10.03 Durham, NC @ Motor Co Music Hall
10.04 Asheville, NC @ New Mountain Theatre
10.05 Athens, GA @ Georgia Theatre
10.06 Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West
10.07 Orlando, FL @ The Social
10.08 Tampa, FL @ Crowbar
10.10 Miami, FL @ Bardot
10.11 Tallahassee, FL @ Club Downunder
10.12 New Orleans, LA @ Hi Ho Lounge
10.13 Memphis, TN @ 1884 Lounge at Minglewood Hall
10.14 Oklahoma City, OK @ ACM @ UCO Performance Lab
10.17 Colorado Springs, CO @ The Black Sheep
10.18 Aspen, CO @ Belly Up
10.19 Salt Lake City Utah @ Metro Music Hall
10.21 Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
“Repetition is a form of change,” reads one of Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies. Seth Haley knows the concept well, and his style of technicolour synth-wave takes the mantra as a challenge–how much emotion can one man convey through his machines? Six years ago, Galactic Melt introduced space traveler Com Truise and his journey through far-flung galaxies, before mini-epics Wave 1 and Silicon Tare expanded the story in further cosmic detail. And now Iteration concludes this sprawling saga. True to its name, the album is built on Com Truise hallmarks: neon-streaked melodies, big drums, robotic grooves, bleary nostalgia. But Iteration is also the most elegant and streamlined that Haley’s music has ever sounded.
At the album’s heart is an elaborate narrative, one full of longing, hope, anxiety, and triumph. Iteration illustrates the last moments Com Truise spends on the perilous planet Wave 1, before he and his alien love escape its clutches to live in peace. Album opener …Of Your Fake Dimension launches the interstellar drama with its anthemic swells and widescreen sound design, before lovesick songs like Dryswch and Propagation outline scenes wrought with cybernetic pathos. In Isostasy, the synaesthetic quality of Haley’s compositions is presented in ultra-high-definition. Later, the frantic rhythms of Syrthio conjure images of panicked flight as Haley’s gorgeous synth melodies gild the action in quiet heartbreak. Then comes the resounding When Will You Find The Limit…, when ‘Iteration”s pain and sadness finds liberation in the vast unknown. The closing title track ends it all in a gush of majestic revelry.
So goes the winding story that Iteration tells, and yet there’s more behind its telling. “I try hard not to write from my personal life, but it’s inevitably going to seep into the music,” Haley explains. “It’s basically like I’m scoring this film in my head, but that film I’m scoring is also somehow my life.” There are glimpses of the difficult time the East Coast native spent adjusting to a new life in Los Angeles, fighting homesickness and burnout while also touring the world. It was a time full of uncertainty, transition, and self-realization. After a year and a half of living in California, Haley finally recaptured his creativity by finding new excitement in his work. “I put more air, more breathing room in the musicthat was the big change,” he says. And once that clicked, the album quickly materialized.
Such a clear refinement of the Com Truise sound took time to develop, but Iteration is well worth the patience and perseverance it cost. Some of Haley’s smartest, catchiest work is here, from the weightless pop heights of Memory to Ternary‘s lush synth-funk. A song like Vacuume somehow manages to balance massive bass swells and punishing drums with stuttering angelic gasps, and Usurper gracefully pairs subtle poignant melodies with uplifting dance beats. “For me, it feels like change,” Haley says of his second album, and yes, this is Com Truise like never before. By embracing the music’s inherent nature and peerless qualities, ‘Iteration’ finds new avenues of expression in its vivid, familiar surroundings.
