No, no, it’s not another list. It’s a mixtape, the finest in innovative, future-forward sounds assembled by your pals at Motherboard. You get one track a day from now until the end of the year, and then it all comes together into the best document of the future of music seen from the year 2011 on the internet.Between the shuttle program’s final days and the launch of NASA’s latest Mars rover, 2011 was a mixed bag for space exploration. But looking out over a growing list of distant exoplanets we have no chance of reaching in our lifetimes, there’s plenty reason to dote on the escapist space fantasies of NYC progressive rock ensemble Starscream.Known for operatic compositions built off a single Nintendo Game Boy, you may recognize the duo from their appearances at New York’s Blip Festival and on MTV’s American adaptation of the British teen drama Skins. Their recent LP Future, Toward The Edge of Forever expands their usual repertoire to include guitars, keyboards and even some guest licks from Peelander-Z bassist Kotaru Tsukada.The new additions serve them well, expanding the breadth of the band’s sound far beyond its usual orbit. The album’s single, the pithily-titled “Space,” cruises cinematically alongside fast, fuzzy guitars and game boy arpeggios, occasionally slowing down to revel in awe at the cosmological clockwork passing by. There’s never a clear sense of whether Starscream is meant to be mourning the denial of a Space Age or heralding its coming. But if such a time does come to pass, they’ll no doubt become some of the finest troubadours of travel among the stars.
.09 Starscream, “Space”
Enjoy more selections from Motherboard’s 2011 mixtape right over here.