Anders Trentemøller`s sixth studio album is titled Memoria, which from the start suggests that the record is concerned with the past. Musically its primary influences are rooted in the first half of the 1990s, namely artists you’ll find filed under shoegaze – a genre which to me actually feels timeless. Standout tracks, such as the song, All Too Soon, must surely be tributes to Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine. The record makes no apologies and wears these references proudly. 

Bass-lines descend like those of The Cure, or New Order. The guitars recall Robert Smith`s “riffing” on Pornography, Faith, Disintegration. Wonderful walls of reverb and distortion, aching, ethereal, over drum machine rattle. Glacial glides of graceful gothic romanticism, where the music of Robin Guthrie is invoked. The closing three tracks, in particular, are Cocteau Twins-esque marvels. Drifting Star echoes elegantly. Colourful chords, effect-pedal explosions, elevate Like A Daydream`s simple structure. Linger`s resting heartbeat rhythm building to a terrific, final, cathartic thrash. 

Dead Or Alive is a jagged, Joy Division-like rocker. Racing through Interzone. Other tracks hint at Anders` own “techno” back catalogue. Dark rumbling electronics that evolve into forceful 4 / 4s, sequences surging and feeding back. At it`s most subdued, on tunes such as A Summer’s Empty Room, the set goes someway toward filling the sad, slow, sensual void left by Camella Lobo`s Tropic Of Cancer. 

I could also list a whole load of newer bands, who are, or were, doing something similar. Wild Nothing, Weekend Sports, Elite Gymnastics, Echo Ladies, Documenta…Especially the latter`s David Holmes-produced Love As A Ghost. I`m making a point here of mentioning Holmes because the crystalline, kosmische that, together with engineer Gary “Vendetta Suite” Irwin, he’s been making recently is also a touchstone. Anders` When The Sun Explodes, for example, is a motorik manoeuvre, washed by waves, a tsunami, of “shining” sound. Illuminated by eruptions of sonic solar flares. Sparkling like Irwin’s Christmas In Cologne.

Trentemøller`s Memoria will be released this Friday, February 11th, on In My Room.