The album title Plastic Void conjures up many different images into one’s head. The most prominent one being an artificial…

The album title Plastic Void conjures up many different images into one’s head. The most prominent one being an artificial nothingness. Something like a marvel of nature (the Grand Canyon or the earth’s atmosphere itself) that has been synthetically reconstructed, stripped of that aura that weights it in space and time. The geological and historical context missing, and there in its place an unidentifiable and pristine soullessness.

Rashida Prime certainly invites the listener to bare these thoughts in mind as For The Sake Of Binary begins, and smooth virtual vistas and valleys open up. Sparkling synth notes begin to bloom before us as we are brought slowly into a carefully constructed atmosphere. Rashida Prime builds a feeling of vertigo with wavering synths intertwining every now and again. A euphoric note swoops in above us like a soaring dove diving into the landscape. A small tune begins to emit from nearby. Rashida seems to show us an artificial nature in fast motion, as if each eruption of notes is a flower opening and closing to the passing sun. An atmosphere vibrant and alive, the melodies conjure a feeling of helpless enormity. As if we stand on the precipice of a huge natural event, a slave to its beauty, unable to change one bit of it. Rashida builds the surroundings carefully, synths thrash about lapping against one another before all begins to ebb away like the dying rage of a storm.

Blessed By Metal begins timidly. A mellow sound starts to grow in stature, stretching itself out piece by piece. With a flick of high frequency, it starts to evolve. An amorphous crystalline goop slowly moving across the stereo field towards the listener. Rashida Prime showcases a habit for insurgency with each individual aspect. Each instrument, trill or melody is brought in almost under the cloak of another sound. Before long, a delayed synth comes from nowhere and heralds the beginning of every note and a fizzling backdrop lifts it all to a more prominent position in the mix. An arpeggiated sound gurgles, falling under the waves of the thick pad sounds every so often. Everything is held in a restricted stasis, it feels as though each part could burst into flames at any moment. Rashida pulls each aspect back for a bit and they slush around at the back of the mix, before letting everything naturally pool to the front in a crescendo that lasts for around a minute. Not one of the sounds breaks rank, save for a synth that pierces through with singular notes mimicking the chord progression of the pads.

Worthless Redemption begins with a traversing pad followed by almost inaudible background noise. Each and every part of Plastic Void has been constructed by Rashida Prime at this point, each sound painstakingly moulded. This allows each undulation to be that much more emotive and real. The pad continues to slide around as an endlessly trickling bell is pushed in front of us like some swiftly pulsing tesseract. As the frequency is pulled up, it seems to open itself up to us, swallowing the listener in a multitudinous beauty. Sounds push behind it as we are hypnotised by the lightning speed at which the instrument hammers it’s way through. Rashida brings the frequency filter up again causing the sound to catapult towards aggressively. A choppy digitised sound plods forward along with it. It’s almost as if we stand on some great parapet in space, watching a planet or ship revolve slowly. The artist does not rush, slowly opening up to us, making those high frequency moments all the more intense, like we are staring into some blinding light beam.

Vindication takes less time to build. Shifting pads jet off into an endless terrain as two singular synth notes move with it like an automated scanner. Diamond-like noise falls off of the gargantuan pads and shimmers all the way down to the floor beneath us. The two notes have become more aggressive and distorted, now shooting an emotive foil to the pads chords towards us. Before the sound can become to powerful, this track fades from our vision as all the others have. Leaving us in the silence of the unknown momentarily.

Sphere Worship does push a more spiritual, less intimidating feeling out into the air. A breathy synth pad plays chords that invite us to revel in the beauty, rather than cower toward it like the power of the preceding tracks has. A clumsy whistling sound finds its way to us. It’s chord progression grows like any other, but with some sort of lame characteristic to it, a few notes hit off key. Strangely this makes it feel almost human, at least the most human thing we’ve come across. Rashida’s moving entities seem to traverse through the space very easily, this one almost sounds lame, like the lowly humans attempt at recreating the passage of this great sublime celestial powers. The cosmos greets the sound, building a touching bell melody around it as it tries to float carefully through the waves of pads. The atmosphere Rashida creates is incredibly dizzying. With no sense of grounding, we meet all these sounds as we are hopelessly suspended ourselves.

Body That Orbits A Star diverges to a more definitive musicality as slow-moving pads and FX provide a bedrock for an emotive bell to trickle into earshot. As the background noise pulses and weaves its way through intricate patterns, the glossy bell makes everything seem far away. Like we are watching the destruction of something large and thriving from a more than safe distance. With a swift bass drum, Rashida brings in a bass element to the soundscape. It now guides the narrative of the track, either shifting to a more tense and beautiful note, or repeating a note as it drives us further into the glistening mix. Everything falls still for a moment. Save for a slowly phasing synth sound, everything loses its sense of spirit and energy. We float effortlessly among the ebbing sounds until we are met with another commanding low frequency hit. This brings in a more organic string to the song. The slight movement towards organic instruments does not go unnoticed. Until this point, it had felt like what we were hearing was the world Rashida had created. Now, the artist weaves an emotional thread through the use of clear melody and instrumentation. A explicitly clear shift in the narrative and style of Plastic Void as a whole.

Beyond Preemption begins with washed out chord progressions, a scene very gradually floats towards us. Overdriven guitars can be heard on the periphery of the noise, meshing with computerised warbles and whistles perfectly. A strong sound shifts to and fro. These arpeggiations that Rashida employs move like serpents through the CGI vista behind them. They poke their head through the mix only dip back down out of sight for a moment. The slow and calculated movements are present as they have been on tracks before, but a great care in the layering and arranging allows the artist to really progress the growth of the song from a simple change in velocity. A screeching guitar sound buffets its way overhead as a warm fuzz grows behind the sound. Sunrise in an endless digital terrain. An ever-moving sea of pixels and data thrives and breathes before us, through the artist’s knack for euphoria we are welcomed once again to a breathtaking vision of the sublime. The guitar-like sound continues to scream its way through the noise, twinkling stars and shrieking entities peel off on either side as we are welcomed with slowly approaching silence once again. Rashida Prime inverts expectation. So often in music we are waiting for the next instrument to chime in, for the next movement to start. With Rashida, the listener seems to be suspended in agony, waiting to find out just how they will be left in silence once again.

Succumb To False sends sloshing synth noises towards us. Like many times before, a fast and intense synth tone deviates from note to note, slowly approaching us from over the horizon. But the texture, its presence and the feeling is always unique. This synth tone seems to bring percussion with it, timid cymbals and even a canned clap spray out sporadically from its unrelenting charge. All of a sudden a bass drum hits quickly setting out a fast-moving rhythm. The immediate injection of beat has not happened yet on the Plastic Void. But Rashida predictably handles it with the precise and intricate eye for detail as the artist has with each and every track so far. It doesn’t hurt the euphoric nature of the track, and only seems to support the beautiful structure and texture. A moaning synth shoots out, guiding the way for the wall of pads and notes to follow. The vista created and refined throughout the album seems to vanish beneath us as we are gently lifted by the momentum and the bass drops out. Swept off of our feet, travelling at immense speed, unsure of our final destination, the listener tries to remain calm. The feelings of vertigo come crashing back. The arpeggiator seems to glide with us, all succumbs to that weightlessness that occurs when first taking off from the ground. The bass drum continues to shake and rattle the mix, but then exits. The plethora of delayed sound pushes us further and further toward the edge of the atmosphere, and with the dying of the last cymbal we float out into the void.

Filled with everything from pads that soothe and ease feelings of unease to autonomous and rapid sounds that beckon the listener within the reach of their deathly sharp edge, Rashida Prime’s Plastic Void plays like it wasn’t meant for the human ear. The artist allows us to become acquainted with massive, unfathomable landscapes engineered entirely from scratch. The project as a whole is almost the soundtrack to a slowly shattering simulation. Each screeching synth a crack in an seemingly infinite simulacra.

Download/purchase on cassette here: https://purelifetapes.bandcamp.com/album/plastic-void