Confronting 2026, hope can seem in short supply, as the most divisive and toxic voices worldwide are amplified amidst an ever-rising temperature of conflict and alienation, yet hope is abundant in Losey, the latest release on Rocket Recordings from the mercurial duo Gnoomes. Just as this couple have taken a bold step into the unknown by leaving Russia and moving to Slovenia, so their music has thrown off all shackles to flourish in a defiant show of vibrant and revivifying colour. “The life of an immigrant is a strange thing,” says the band’s Sasha Piankov. “But luckily, that glow music brings us has never faded, even though the emotional landscape has definitely shifted.” Yet whilst the music that Sasha and his creative and life partner Masha Piankova came up with is testimony to a liberating triumph against oppression and adversity, it also goes beyond. What has emerged is a kaleidoscopic collision of styles which sends the “skygazing” realm of their previous work spinning into electronic orbit. Whilst the opener Foreign Agent explicitly tackles the pressures of the Russian state, it also throws a Stereolab-style motorik meditation through an in-the-red psychedelic prism. Elsewhere we can behold Mikhail Bulgakov and Chris & Cosey as bedfellows amidst the mesmeric, 303-fried EBM of Satan’s Ball. “Rave as therapy. Pop as resistance. Love as endurance. ADHD as a production technique.” These are the primary ingredients of Losey, by the reckoning of the band themselves. This is an album that exists purely on its own distinct frequency, driven by defiance and positivity. Losey is a soundtrack to set fire to the old order, the better to dance in the glow.
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