Alex Mackay - 'Held Across Parallels' (V35)

‘Held Across Parallels’ is Alex Mackay presenting exactly that; holding in parallel the definitive and the obtuse, the academic and the emotive, the sharp and the obscure. These four tracks are investigations into tone, resonance, depth and time, meticulously parsing each element and their relationships to one another with surgical detail.

Alex’s drone work on ‘…Parallels’ is not tentative or delicate, it doesn’t smudge or obscure its workings in overt processing, rather the chords are bold and austere, the textures are clear and dense and the presentation is completely unambiguous. It gives the tracks an almost skeletal clarity, there is nowhere for these notes to hide.

Within its stentorian and measured presence these tracks are also suffused with a deeply melancholic, emotive sentiment. How it manages to communicate such a somber and elegiac mood within such bold, fervent techniques is what lifts ‘…Parallels’ beyond its formalistic framework.
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“‘Held Across Parallels’ explores harmonic structures developed in parallel with one another within sonic spaces of sustained spectral saturation, combining constant harmonic and spectral spaces with perpetually shifting internal components; performed within carefully constructed environments featuring distinct acoustic conditions, delicate high-intensity instrumental performance systems balance chaos and stability.

"‘Hollow Body In Dream’ and ‘Projection In Oscillation’ lay out foundational material from which the record’s two larger pieces are constructed; two harmonic frameworks which coexist, yet exert shifting degrees of gravitational pull throughout, resonating in two distinct acoustic environments.

"‘Pentagon In Hexagon’ and ‘Perpetual Flame In Rotation’ place these core frameworks within compositional structures of non-linear temporal and harmonic expansion and contraction, centred on amplified analog synthesizer and electric guitar respectively where extremes of resonance, volume and spectral density are balanced with an intent to maintain adherence to the imposed structural rigidity.” - Alex Mackay

Recorded at Elektronmusikstudion, Stockholm and the Music Research Centre/Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York in spring 2023. Sequences and structures within the pieces were developed at points between 2019 and 2023.

Mastered by Simon Scott as SPS Mastering

Artwork and design by Matt Zurowski

Released October 3rd 2025. Venalism V35.