PRICE, TONY: Requiem For The Ontario Science Centre LP

If Suzanne Ciani jammed with Alex Zhang Hungtai, it may sound like Tony Price’s fantasy retro-futurist dedication to the utopian ‘60s architecture of Raymond Moriyama. Beamed in on the artist’s Maximum Exposure label - hailing to the same locale which houses Moriyama’s fanciful domes, arcing metal sculptures and concrete forms - ‘Requiem For The Ontario Science Centre’ works in a fine, wide-eyed and wistful tradition of Torontonian, and by extension, Canadian, synth music that has fed forward into everything from Howard Shore or David Kristian scores to BoC and so many more within the broader cultural consciousness. Smartly skewed with the jazzy lust of Colin Fisher’s sax blare, no doubt recalling the (ap)peal of Alex Zhang Hungtai, the results balance a space age optimism with creeping sci-fi pessimism in ways likely to snag interests of hauntologically minded daydreamers and nocturnal microdosers. Two durational bookends see them push out into expansive imaginary scapes, with a title piece that sets the parameters of pulsating synth slash and freeform sax, and a ‘Red Neon Arcade’ that gazes with glazed ears into a fraught middle distance, whilst ‘Raymond Moriyama’ is properly BoC via Ghost Box and ‘Dead Utopia’ primed for urbexing abandoned shopping malls.