Houston’s genre-blending alchemist, Illuminade, returns with a blood-pumping trek into the subconscious on his latest single, “Reference.” It’s a full-blown psycho adventure into the abyss.
As a stand-alone single, “Reference” is an absolute masterclass in what makes Illuminade a serious force to be reckoned with within the world of experimental electronic and psychedelic rock. In the year-plus since he launched the project, this one-man jam band has methodically created an emotionally wrenching, atmospherically sprawling space for himself, and this new track is proof that he’s not done getting bigger. Illuminade wastes no time setting up its shadowy terrain from its opening drum beat. Backed by deep, sub-bass thuds and accented with distorted synths and echoing guitar riffs, the track plays like a stroll through a lucid dream in which reality keeps sliding sideways. The guitar work, in particular, slices through the haze like a mournful, mysterious, and utterly hypnotic scalpel.
What distinguishes Illuminade and the quality is his ability to establish a sense of movement. “Reference” doesn’t so much play as pulse, breathe, and mutate, unfurling like an inner monologue caught between transcendence and descent. He’s doing something more than atmosphere here, more than a kind of bleak emotional weight draped in reverb and lingers past the record’s closing note.
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