by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
There’s a lot to be said about an artist that is forever reshaping their sound, especially when it comes to songs already released. They can take new form in the artist’s mind, beginning for life anew, free of constraint and reimagined. Options, the solo project of Chicago DIY mainstay Seth Engel (Coaster, Great Deceivers, Pyramid Scheme), has a restless creative streak and sometimes engineering records and writing new music just won’t cut it when there’s an old itch just waiting to be scratched. Pacific Notion, released back in 2017, found Engel reinventing a selection of Options’ songs with a synthetic and electronic beauty, void of his usual rock band formation. Two years later, he’s at it again with Pacific Notion II, a project that finds Engel diving headfirst into the digital world with blissful results.
“Offering,” the EP’s opener, is lush and bursting with texture, a synth pop song with a math rock mindframe. It’s big on groove and intersecting melodies. It’s bright and vibrant while still containing a hint of melancholy. The song feels like a flower opening after a harsh winter or getting lost in a beautiful foreign city, with nowhere to go but everything to see. The maximalist recording is filled with syrupy guitar loops, careening fuzz, and stuttering rhythms, everything mounted together in a giant heap of well orchestrated pop enjoyment.
Speaking about the track, Engel shared:
“‘Offering’ was initially started as a guitar loop with a first verse of vocals sometime around August 2016, but I didn't get much farther than about a minute of music. I actually did most of the heavy lifting for this while at Russian Recording in Bloomington, IN while making the Lifted Bells LP - I brought my laptop to work on stuff once I was done tracking drums, and wound up finishing the tune. All the warped vocals and pretty much everything from the 2nd verse and on, was done in the small iso room there, with an SM58 and a two channel interface. The live drums at the end, I tracked hastily in the live room with one mic, right before starting my second day of drums for the LB LP.
‘Offering’ is sort of about trying to center myself, and get into a healthier personal relationship with creativity. More than nearly anything, I love the writing process and it's virtually-unlimited boundaries. I've often found myself denying myself the opportunity to indulge in other aspects of life, ignoring how they inform my art and instead viewing them as distractions.”
Options’ Pacific Notion II is due out October 25th.