Bad Meditation (Album)

2015

Originally released digitally by the Bleak Netlabel in 2015 (Bleak 55). This is Cultural Amnesia’s second album of post-1998 material following This Is Not Your Shape (Bleak, 2011, 2012). The download includes the official video for I Sleep Better and a PDF booklet of lyrics.

The words for “Break Loose Your Bonds”, the closing track of the album, come verbatim from a letter by Vincent van Gogh to his brother Theo from the autumn of 1883. The letter urges Theo to give up his hectic life in the art world and join Vincent where he is painting, deep in the Dutch countryside (Letter 339, by permission of the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam).

Review

"... Electronic rhythms with jolts of guitar along with clever, lyrical wordplay show there is continuity from their early cassette releases, even though the cheap Casio and Bontempi keyboards may now have been consigned to the loft. The vocals remain cold, detached and delivered in a bleak spoken monotone. Listening to Bad Meditation it's clear that the desire for experimentation, which characterised their earlier output, continues unabated. The form may have changed but the approach remains consistent. ... The artiness to the words and sounds, steeped in art rock and post-punk electronics ... is prevalent on Bad Meditation. The influences of This Heat, Cabaret Voltaire and early Human League is easily detected here, given a polished, contemporary sheen that allows their desire for experimentation to come to the fore on the warped pop sensibility of these songs. Bad Meditation ... is a wonderful introduction to the new works of Cultural Amnesia. ..."
– CompulsionOnline, 2015