San Diego, California singer/songwriter & producer Salami Rose Joe Louis making her Brainfeeder Records debut with her 3rd studio LP. Introducing herself in 2016 off her full-length debut Son of a Sauce!, the subsequent sophomore effort Zlaty Sauce Nephew a year later was more positively received & interested Flying Lotus enough to the point where he signed her to Brainfeeder distributed by Ninja Tune. And being a FlyLo fan since my teens, I wanted to give Zdenka 2080 a fair chance.
“Suddenly” opens up with this futuristically hypnotic 105 second intro singing about finding life challenging out of nowhere leading into “Octagonal Room” kicking off with a spoken word piece until hitting us with a chorus & post-chorus entering a new dimension. After the “She Wakes Up (1st Dimension)” composition, “Love the Sun” goes for a heavy Stereolab vibe for 2 & a half minutes while the ethereal “Cumulous Potion (For the Clouds to Sing)” after the “Cirrus Floccus (2nd Dimension)” intermission describes a kind of concoction created by a starship from another galaxy.
Dream pop, singer/songwriter & hypnagogic pop all collide on the single “Nostalgic Montage” singing about traveling to see her friends if she were a bird just before “Meet Z in 3D (3rd Dimension)” atmospherically confesses that she doesn’t like sing much these days & making life busy so he can’t face her soul. “Confessions of a Metropolis Spaceship” moves on from there asking where he breath went & after “A Brief Intermission”, she spends a couple minutes during “Sitting with Thoughts” singing about someone who makes her feel alone.
“Earth Creature” gets the 2nd half going with Lindsay pleading for those listening to not lose hope over a Herbie Hancock-influenced beat while “Peculiar Machine (4th Dimension)” sings about discovering something mysteriously radiant. After the “Drifting” instrumental piece, “You Get Blue” has to be one of the weaker moments on the album considering it’s so short that there’s literally no point of it being on here while “Diatoms & Dinoflagellates (5th Dimension)” has a cavernous spoken word flare to it.
After the ambient “Transformation of a Molecule (6th Dimension)” beat, “The Artist (7th Dimension)” rounds out 3rd taking a more rustic approach while “Collision, Gravity, Time” sings about something else in the sky coming closer. “Heads Turn to Paintings” neo-psychedelically realizes the time has come while the final song “Cosmic Dawn (8th Dimension)” preceding the “To Be Continued…” outro majestically finishes singing about knowing your fear how she wants one to do so.
Most people would have Zlaty Sauce Nephew above Zdenka 2080 & understandably so, but I’d make the argument that Salami Rose Joe Louis’ debut for Brainfeeder begins this next phase of her career with the strongest collection of music she’s conceived. Her production’s more neo-psychedelic than earlier output additionally pulling from dream pop, ambient pop, nu jazz, wonky, hypnagogic pop & indietronica to cohesively describe a future dystopian Earth in the year 2080 that’s been mismanaged by unethical governments & corporations.
Score: 4/5
Legends Will Never Die 