Alexis Georgopoulos aka Arp (rhymes with “harp,” not pronounced A.R.P.) has always approached recordings with a conceptual bent. Imbued with an expansive sense of music history – he’s written about pop and avant-garde music for i-D, V, ANP Quarterly, BOMB, The FADER and Vice – he has a penchant for doing the unexpected and refusing to take part in the fleeting pop trends of the given day in favor of pursuing a more adventurous trajectory.

Georgopoulos made MORE, released last year via Smalltown Supersound, primarily by himself. The endeavor took time. With “Pulsars e Quasars,” out September 23rd via Mexican Summer, he wanted to work quickly. He asked a few friends to join him in the studio. And while the same nuanced attention to detail that characterized MORE is present here, there is a looser, slightly more drugged-out, live band quality present here.

As the title infers, there is a ‘cosmic’ quality to “Pulsars e Quasars” – in a sense, it draws a link to his earlier cosmic synth work, albeit reclaiming and redefining it in a pop songwriting context. It also shows the noisier, kraut-y side of Arp. Take for instance, the title track and EP’s first single, “Pulsars e Quasars.” It’s a lysergic rush, a kaleidoscopic bite of psychedelic Anglophile pop. As with MORE, it shows Georgopoulos settling into his singing voice which is finding a comfortable spot between the narcotic resplendence of George Harrison and the delicacy of Broadcast’s Trish Keenan. The music, meanwhile, opens swathed in phased guitars before building into a prismatic, melodic fuzzed out mass.

“Pulsars e Quasars” EP Track listing:   

1. Suns

2. Pulsars e Quasars

3. Chromatiques II (Extended Mix)

4. UHF1

5. On Returning

6. The Violet Hour (Film Dub)

7. New Persuasion (Version by La Re ve lateur)

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