Lost Days

No. 16 in the top 20 albums of the year [RSART002]

“Lost Days is truly a unique album in Mark Streatfield’s 20 or so year career, and it may very well come to define, at least in part, his work as a musician and producer.”

Bruno once ran the best music blog around - The Milk Factory. I always looked forward to the reviews he did, as he always properly listened to everything he reviewed, not just regurgitating the One Sheet. He finished that many years ago but still does his top 20 every year. This year, Lost Days by Cyan341 (which is me, if you didn’t know already) is at Number 16, unbelievably ahead of Beth Gibbons with Lives Outgrown (https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/beth-gibbons-lives-outgrown) of Portishead by one place; now that is a great album.

Finally, thanks to Bruno for allowing me to republish this, and if I keep nudging him, maybe he will finally sort out his substack :-)

THE 2024 REVIEW - 16. CYAN 341: Lost Days (Rednetic)

Although released at the tail-end of 2023, this album has made quite a big mark this year. Cyan341 is one of the project from Rednetic co-founder, musician and producer Mark Streatfield. I’ve known Mark for many years and his music, steeped in classic techno, has always struck a particular chord with me, but this project is in a very different league altogether.

Recorded as a form of coping with the passing of his father during lockdown following a long battle with prostate cancer, this is a personal project on a vast scale. The mood is predictably sombre and deeply reflective, something partly reflected in the semi-long form format adopted here, with all tracks bar one clocking at over 10 minutes, with the poignant Eulogy, the album’s centre piece, slowly developing over its almost 16 minutes.

Unlike the series of releases which dropped throughout this years on which Streatfield explored a variety of digital dub forms, this album feeds on introspective techno which appear to have been resolutely slowed down and tempered with to create a thoroughly hypnotic soundtrack. There is often a feeling that nothing much happen within the minimalist soundscapes, but if you take the time to scratch the surface and give things time, more and more concealed components come into focus before vanishing once again. This is a process which is repeated throughout, as if Streatfield wanted to keep his grief from full view.

Album opener Breath is perhaps one of the more fully open and upbeat pieces on here. Propelled by a steady beat supporting a recurring set of melodic patterns, it feels as is light is getting through for a moment, but as the next track draws in, there is a definitely desolation creeping in. It is almost as if an icy wind had ushered in the first premise of winter at the end of a bright autumnal day. The piece is one of the most stripped down and introspective of the entire album. Not that the mood lightens up with the next few pieces but while Eulogy relies on a gritty electronic loop, Deguchi is not without recalling the work Fernando Corona produced as Terrestre before he began releasing music as Murcof.

The mood appears to lift quite a bit with the gorgeous Morphine, a take on classic techno which wouldn’t have sounded out of place on B12’s Electro-Soma, before Saïda returns to more contemplative forms, but there is a more peaceful tone to the piece, as if Streatfield was reaching the stage of acceptance in his grieving process.

Lost Days is not an easy album to face, but it is an album I found myself going back to again and again throughout the year, often in moments when I need time to reflect. Lost Days is truly unique album in Mark Streatfield’s 20 or so year career, and it may very well come to define, at least in part, his work as a musician and producer.

Listen to: Breath, Degushi, Morphine, Saïda.