Launched in 2025 Stateless Bass which will concentrate on ambient/instrumental/experimental sounds.
The debate release was ghost elektron’s ‘The Romance of Modern Mechanism’
‘The Romance of Modern Mechanism’ is the 2nd album from ghost elektron (Sean Albiez) after 2021’s ‘Unlocked’ on State of Bass. Like its predecessor, the album sits in a liminal space between ambient, instrumental and experimental electronic music. Although completed in summer 2025, there are strands and fragments of sound from earlier recordings dating as far back as the late 1990s. Whereas ‘Unlocked’ primarily focused on the piano as a sound source, the new album explores electronic sound design and soundscapes while simultaneously experimenting with rhythmic layers and beats.
The album title was inspired by a 1905 book by Archibald Williams that Sean came across on the shelf of a library in a National Trust property in Cornwall. Williams’ book is an exposition of how at the beginning of the 20th century it had become impossible in Britain to escape from ‘our environment of mechanism’ after the technological revolutions of the previous two centuries. This is no hand-wringing, critical analysis, but a comprehensive introduction to the many ways technology had embedded itself in, and created advantages for, Edwardian society.
The album was constructed using a combination of experimental techniques Sean developed during his practical PhD (‘Sounds of Future Past: the Poetics of Electronica’) with those developed in recent compositional and production work for his and Martin James’ Nostalgia Deathstar project. The tracks were initially formed without any specific intentions or outcome in mind, but were later reconstructed after critical reflection, retrospectively editing, building on and elaborating the ‘moods’ or ‘sonic environments’ that seemed to be suggested by the original tracks.
