The Soft Pink Truth : Can Such Delightful Times Go On Forever?
Artists making the transition from pop music forms to symphonic structures has occurred for decades, although there’s also usually been some storytelling reason for moving to that kind of songwriting. The likes of Danny Elfman, Mark Mothersbaugh, and quite recently Daniel Lopatin have successfully brought their vision from club floors and concert stages to filmed media, commanding classical ensembles to set moods playful, thrilling, and otherwise. Matmos’ Drew Daniel moves in the same direction on Can Such Delightful Times Go On Forever?, the eighth LP from his long-established solo project The Soft Pink Truth.
Daniel writes music for Delightful Times inspired by the struggle to continue finding meaning and joy in being creative when faced with society’s current struggles against the exposed depravities of capitalism and an increase in fascistic thought and policy. But he introduces significant risk here by pivoting away from The Soft Pink Truth’s techno roots without a soundtrack destination like Elfman and his ilk. It’s also well beyond chamber pop; it’s modern classical for its own sake. And it’s less his own performance and more his planning as an arranger and producer—and the results we hear from who and what he conducts—that are meant to tell his story.
Delightful Times is anchored by sections of and interplay between traditional strings from the likes of The Ebu String Quartet and Tongue Depressor’s Zach Rowden, and piano parts by Koye Berry as well as M.C. Schmidt, Daniel’s husband and Matmos partner. There are hints of actual fun in “L’Esprit de L’Escalier” and the harp-filled “Mere Survival is Not Enough” before they downshift into something more dramatic through softer volume in the former and instrumental attack in the latter. The 10-minute “Phrygian Ganymede,” meanwhile, pieces together the kind of choppy string and keyboard lines heard in Italian or A24 horror.
Some figures on the album suggest romance, while others like “Orchard” would do the same were they not sonically subverted by song’s end. Daniel’s presence in such modification is subtle, subdued, frankly hard to pinpoint—glitching and delay here, arranged dissonance there, drone closing out the reprise of “Underneath” and the album overall using dozens of overdubs of Turkish violinist Ulas Kurugullu. Where Daniel’s prior house-influenced songs and releases were obviously done by his own hand, Can Such Delightful Times Go On Forever? blends him into a much bigger roster of musicians. But across a swift 40 minutes, this music with The Soft Pink Truth name still does right by it, embracing and distorting the evocation of themes from movies produced by the Mandela effect instead of any studio.
Label: Thrill Jockey
Year: 2026
Similar Albums:
