Adventure - Lesser Known
MMM1/2
Adventure, the electronic project of Baltimore and Wham City resident Benny Boeldt, owes a lot to the electronica that was birthed in the ‘80s. Lesser Known, his second full-length, ditches the 8-bit, electronic frame of Adventure’s self-titled debut in favor of pop hooks and more dynamic, profound – not to mention dance floor-ready – electropop songs.
And while Boeldt has added vibrancy and pop accessibility to his electronic compositions, there’s an unshakable impression that these songs could be suitable soundtrack material for utopian – and in some cases dystopian – science fiction films. Whether he’s repeatedly singing – as if it were a mantra to carry his soul over troubled times – “And this feels like heaven” (“Feels Like Heaven”) or looping a sample of a stern, cold voice directing us to “Relax the mind” (“Relax the Mind”), there is a sense of disillusionment that lies beneath the layers of synthesizer, as if Boeldt is taking a walk along the line that separates fiction from reality. The pairing of “Relax the Mind” into “Another World” calls to mind the yearning for a blissful, emotionally honest existent like that of Robert Duvall’s character in THX 1138.
