Quality Mirrors is the third album by Everett based synth pop artist Brandon Isleib with help from Declaime, Rose Alaimo, Vincent Vilius, Nick Merchant, Anji Bee, Daviance Blunt, Ryan Lum and Madame Maledicta.
The album fades in on an ambient droning wave Song One Is A Lie that has whispered vocals telling you why you should skip Song One it's the tune to gull you into buying this record, but it might be a false chimera, so take song 2 as being the truth, this weird opening is just that, a weird opening.
So song 2 is Circling Canopies that you should snack on your favourite canapes too, it rises and falls with swirling impersonal synth's, slow mildly adjusted vocals, trying to get you under those Circling Canopies like you're a kestrel on the hunt for prey down below and other elements of life.
Melt Spun works round a morse-code dance beat, tapping out a message about the requiem of life and death, how we are all Melt Spun by life and its all-encompassing heartbreak, strings rise through the dance pop backing, trying to find the keys to the firestorm that is Brandon's life.
Virginia's Peach Party Loaf, With Two Walnuts is certainly one of the best song titles so far this year, a Krautrock soundtrack to a sci-fi epic, set on a spaceship that resembles a Peach picking party, with walnuts given as tokens of affection, they speak a xylophonic language.
Lost Within This Time Ft Anji Bee super gauzily caught between darkened synth omnichords style walls, keeping you a refugee from society, starkly outside of what purports to be normality, fear stalks Lynchian alleys of doom.
My Spare Keys is the soundtrack to the hunt around your apartment for that elusive set of Spare Keys, a steady piano beat, searching strings and wistful flutes, help stop you getting out of control, you search on, music signals you may be in luck.
Quality Mirrors in a chamber pop palace of emotional despair, to those who know, where they might stand one day, feelings changed things mutated.
Poet Of The Mic is rapped by Declaime in a Hip chamber way, looking for justice the throws down, for those in the midst of the struggle to survive, in all this chaos and mania, keeping it real, hazy dope beats, another chapter in the annals of rap.
7000 Sparks Weird synth pop shimmer, raging against all the disguises and compromises filling you with pain.
Nearest Pool Of Chaos is a slowly revolving string whirlpool in search of Wiseblood's ferocity, reconfigured for 2025's dystopian nightmare of chaos happening before our disbelieving eyes. Then it shifts into a gauzed passage for Brandon to lead us through this chaos, hopefully towards a calm space, even as the gun reports can be heard timpanically, trying to create a new more Dune like existence.
The album closes with The Emotion Right In Front Of Me a dark, off exploration of the aftermath of therapy sessions, grounding yourself once more, feel of being played while on woozy tranquilizers, dreaming of Prozac days and a better outcome from that session. The conclusion feels like they are drifting off and are still full of questions but calmed somewhat ready for the next adventure of this emotional rollercoaster of life.
Find out more at https://restlessmosaic.bandcamp.com/album/quality-mirrors https://restlessmosaic.com/ https://bsky.app/profile/restlessmosaic.bsky.social
