EP by Group A.D.
Color Space Transform feels like a journey through music that I don’t have half the background to fully dissect.
Fortunately, I don’t need it.
Across five songs, Group A.D. pulls sounds from different genres and different eras and stacks them together until the boundaries start disappearing. Funk grooves, dance beats, psychedelia, electronic samples, ambient textures, jazz, guitars, and what sound like pieces of old film scores all drift in and out.
The entire thing feels cinematic. Sometimes I can picture these songs playing over forgotten 60s spy movies. Other times I’m somewhere in the late 80s listening to industrial dance music. Then a funky bass line, a guitar riff, or some strange sample shows up and the music transforms again.
The only thing that remains constant is the groove.
“Theme for Group A.D.” establishes that immediately. Samples and sounds repeat over a dance beat that makes me think of late-80s industrial music, but without the nihilism. Instead, the song gradually feels almost spiritual. Sounds continue accumulating while angelic vocalizing begins rising over everything at the climax.
The title track gets even more cinematic. “Color Space Transform” sounds like something that could play over the end credits of a David Lynch movie. There’s a classic 60s soundtrack quality underneath it, except everything has been twisted into a pretzel with modern electronic textures. Spoken-word vocals add to the eeriness without giving me much of a clue what any of it means. But it sounds really cool.
“Forza A.D.” might be the most straightforward song here. Electric guitars and drums drive everything forward while the bass keeps the groove underneath it. Then halfway through, the song pulls back as if to remind you not to get too comfortable with the idea that you’re listening to a rock song before heading somewhere else entirely.
“Twist” is my favorite. The bass line has that funky Tina Weymouth quality where the groove alone could probably carry the entire song. Guitar and drums keep pushing forward, samples and spoken-word fragments float through, and the vocalizing becomes increasingly climactic. There’s an infectious hook buried inside all of it, and the repetition works so well that the song could probably keep going forever without bothering me.
“This Is the Sound” finally slows things down, at least temporarily. It begins as a slow burn and then starts stacking. Synths. Drums. Spoken-word samples. A killer guitar riff. Little keyboard or piano flourishes that give parts of it a jazzy feel. And then it keeps climbing. More sounds arrive. The arrangement gets bigger. That late-80s industrial feeling creeps back in, but now it’s surrounded by everything else Group A.D. has been throwing at us for the previous four songs. It’s a fantastic way to finish because it feels less like resolving the EP than piling everything together for one last push.
That’s ultimately what I enjoyed about Color Space Transform. I can hear pieces of music that feel familiar without always being able to identify exactly where they’re coming from. The EP moves through decades and genres like somebody flipping rapidly through radio stations while somehow keeping the same beat underneath all of them.
I don’t have half the musical vocabulary necessary to dissect all the pieces Group A.D. put into this thing.
But I didn’t need to know what all the parts were to enjoy the ride.
Verdict: Solid
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