(Whirring Marvels In) Consensus Reality is a studio album by American composer Matthew Robert Cooper under the pseudonym Eluvium. It was released on May 12, 2023, through Temporary Residence Limited. It received universal acclaim from critics.
Background Matthew Robert Cooper, also known as Eluvium, is an American composer. (Whirring Marvels In) Consensus Reality took inspiration from T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land and Richard Brautigan's "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace". He created the album remotely with members of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), Golden Retriever, and the Budapest Scoring Orchestra. It is his first album to feature a full live orchestra.
The album was released on May 12, 2023, through Temporary Residence Limited.
Critical reception
Jack Bray of The Line of Best Fit praised the album's "commitment to opposing ideas and the curveballs it throws your way in pursuit of them." He added, "Where one song might see Cooper deal with the onward march of technology, another will see him harken back to the kind of loneliness and isolationism many of us will recognise from our time in lockdown." Fred Thomas of AllMusic wrote, "Though his inspirations might have been dystopic thoughts of algorithms and robotic interaction, the buoyant strings and inspiring compositions ultimately mirror human nature's endless questing more than anything else."
Accolades + Year-end lists for (Whirring Marvels In) Consensus Reality Publication List Rank AllMusic Favorite Electronic Albums
Track listing
Personnel Credits adapted from liner notes.
Matthew Robert Cooper – piano, synthesizer, voice, virtual instruments, modular synthesis, sampler, orchestration, production, mixing Ben Russell – violin Jonathan Sielaff – bass clarinet Charlotte Mundy – vocals, noise, screaming Ben Shafer – horn Budapest Scoring Orchestra – additional instrumentation Conor Abbott Brown – orchestration, additional orchestra assistance Denes Redly – Budapest Scoring Orchestra recording Viktor Szabo – Budapest Scoring Orchestra recording Rafael Anton Irisarri – mastering Craig McCaffrey – sleeve Jeannie Lynn Paske – cover art ("A Substitute for Any Larger Form of Thought")
References
Further reading
External links