Sympathies is a series of self-published releases by Furtive, showcasing an extensive multi-genre catalog of colorful and exploratory original production. The sixth album in the sequence wades steadily into foggy, crepuscular melodrama, delivering 11 tracks of steamy sound design for dilated pupils, sweaty lurching, and locked-in dancefloor worship. This release is primarily rooted in dripping, murky techno, but Furtive slips in a few billowing ambient moments for wide-eyed infinite split-seconds. 

The unearthly and impellent flagship track of Sympathies VI is The Night Wanderer, an electrifying, nearly sinister psychedelic techno weapon. There’s an uncanny, spine-shivering energy to this track: it grips the listener and propels them along as if possessed. Eerie, haunting, and maniacally energizing, this is a track for the electric insomniac with eyes torn wide open by the relentless bumps in the night. 

The next tracks are at once steady and uneasy, hypnotizing and unnerving, propulsive and paralyzing. Both Curse Processor and Breathless are full-blown foggy freakouts for the ravers lost in the swelling, humid clouds of unrelenting club throbbing. The former takes a more frenetic and pointilistic approach along with razor-sharp, clattering percussive sound design to keep you on your toes, while the latter hangs more subtly, glowering like a damp, red bulb above a dancefloor as bodies pulse in suspended animation. Humid Creeper follows in a similar gloomy vein, with a more wound-up and sweaty grinding machine-funk sound as billowing atmospherics roll like fog from plodding, sweltering 909s. 

A sludgy, slippery wound-up acid bomb, Carbonated Jungle might oddly be the funkiest track of this release. A slow, lumbering squelcher, this track lurches and builds with just the right cadence to bring a synchronized, irresistible bounce into shoulder-to-shoulder crowds. It peaks with a woozy interruption, the split second for ravers to glance around before feet and floor flex in unison once more - a moist, spun-out ecosystem.

Memory Canopy/Nighttime Ceilings is a wide-eyed, cinematic ambient experience. This is for sleepless reflections, silent teardrops, pensive awe, profound sighs, scanning lights between trees, for the dawn moments on unexpected sheets when words trail off, for [pagan river crossings]. 

A dusky stepper, Silicone & Scattered Wings re-animates with the bass-weight of an irregular rhythm, soaring and glowing synthesizer warmth, and percussive flutters that are like a comforting, sonic blanket stretched between speaker stacks.

Embrace is a glossy, deceptively intense ambient experience for holding on tightly as the weightless, slow-motion G-force of shifting sound waves and overwhelming, high-voltage psychedelia hurtle you into the glimmers of the night.

Caffeine Eyelashes brings a twinkling levity to the arrangement, with plinking and flowery deep techno-adjacent sound design, gentle atmospheres, and with no particular hurry to its sauntering pace - it’s the sunny meadow stroll in an otherwise thorny twilight bramble-bounce of a release.

Seeking Brighter immediately ticks up the urgency, but without undue alarm. Pointillistic arpeggios play counter to hazy, woozy see-sawing sequences in a curious, exploratory, and perpetually enticing way, pulling the listener along as mental soundscapes and physical soundwaves rise and fall. Epiphanies in Dreams’ similar irregular teetering arpeggiation is coupled with blurred, winding, ephemeral slipperiness - it’s the sonic texture of the specifics slipping through the fingers of comprehension and memory upon waking from particularly tumbling, tossing, and turning dream-states. 

Sympathies is named after a debauched steamy summertime studio session - long-since surpassed with all-the-more riotous adventures, brighter lights, and unexpected plot twists.

Production, Mixing, and Mastering by Furtive
Words and artwork by Furtive

Available on Bandcamp

Furtive - Sympathies VI

Epiphanies in Dreams’ similar irregular teetering arpeggiation is coupled with blurred, winding, ephemeral slipperiness - it’s the sonic texture of the specifics slipping through the fingers of comprehension and memory upon waking from particularly tumbling, tossing, and turning dream-states.

Epiphanies In Dreams

Caffeine Eyelashes

Humid Creeper follows sits in a hypnotic, dusky, somewhat gloomy vein, with a more wound-up and sweaty grinding machine-funk sound as billowing atmospherics roll like fog from plodding, sweltering 909s.

Humid Creeper (Steamy Shadows)

Embrace is a glossy, deceptively intense ambient experience for holding on tightly as the weightless, slow-motion G-force of shifting sound waves and overwhelming, high-voltage psychedelia has you hurtling into the glimmers of the night.

Embrace

Seeking Brighter immediately ticks up the urgency, but without undue alarm. Pointillistic arpeggios play counter to hazy, woozy see-sawing sequences in a curious, exploratory, and perpetually enticing way, pulling the listener along as mental soundscapes and physical soundwaves rise and fall. Epiphanies in Dreams’ similar irregular teetering arpeggiation is coupled with blurred, winding, ephemeral slipperiness - it’s the sonic texture of the specifics slipping through the fingers of comprehension and memory upon waking from particularly tumbling, tossing, and turning dream-states.

Seeking Brighter

Breathless is a full-blown foggy freakout for the ravers lost in the swelling, humid clouds of unrelenting club throbbing, hanging subtly and glowering like a damp, red bulb above a dancefloor as bodies pulse in suspended animation

Breathless

A dusky stepper, Silicone & Scattered Wings re-animates with the bass-weight of an irregular rhythm, soaring and glowing synthesizer warmth, and percussive flutters that are like a comforting, sonic blanket stretched between speaker stacks.

Silicone & Scattered Wings

Memory Canopy/Nighttime Ceilings is a wide-eyed, cinematic ambient experience. This is for sleepless reflections, silent teardrops, pensive awe, profound sighs, scanning lights between trees, for the dawn moments on unexpected sheets when words trail off, for [pagan river crossings].

Memory Canopy/Nighttime Ceiling

A sludgy, slippery tightly wound acid bomb, Carbonated Jungle might oddly be the funkiest track of this release. A slow, lumbering squelcher, this track lurches and builds with just the right cadence to bring a synchronized, irresistible bounce into shoulder-to-shoulder crowds. It peaks with a woozy interruption, the split second for ravers to glance around before feet and floor flex in unison once more - a moist, spun-out ecosystem.

Carbonated Jungle

Curse Processor

The unearthly and impellent flagship track of Sympathies VI is The Night Wanderer, an electrifying, nearly sinister psychedelic techno weapon. There’s an uncanny, spine-shivering energy to this track: it grips the listener and propels them along as if possessed. Eerie, haunting, and maniacally energizing, this is a track for the electric insomniac with eyes torn wide open by the relentless bumps in the night.

The Night Wanderer

Producer/DJ/Promoter/Organizer/bonehead/etc - [Bounce House] -  they/them - PHL
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For booking, production, remix work, promos, or any other inquiries, please write to: furtivetrax@gmail.com
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Upcoming Dates:
4/19 Bounce House, Philly
7/28 - The Great Beyond, MN
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Furtive is a full-gonzo rave conjurer and relentless creative tinkerer, intractably committed to the rave as a Philadelphia-based producer, DJ, underground event organizer, and dancer. Furtive brings a scintillating and sentimental touch to their many polished and focused genre-spanning productions, informed by over a decade of experience in the studio and yielding a rich selection of self-released tracks, contributions to VA comps, and recent vinyl pressings. A veritable product of the contemporary American underground, Furtive cut their teeth as a DJ and DIY event organizer in Washington, DC’s warehouses, where they played a turnkey role in putting on some of the District’s zaniest techno parties. Furtive now co-runs an intimate, blossoming off-the-books venue in Philly. As a DJ, Furtive has supported internationally celebrated, no-nonsense acts and held court in dingy local watering holes with eclectic selections and a steadfast focus on pacing and dynamics, regularly jumping genres to build moving and impactful sets. Beyond the fog and speaker stacks, Furtive creates art in a variety of mediums. They're as unapologetic in their sincerity and flair as they are in being a die-hard True Believer in the rave.
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Learn more here: https://www.attackmagazine.com/features/introducing/furtive-the-astronaut-in-a-pool-of-mermaids/
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As a closing note: the journey can be summarized in their own words (or, a cheeky amalgamated existential portmanteau): “I aim for the stars, but sometimes I land in a pool of mermaids.”

https://furtivetrax.bandcamp.com/
https://soundcloud.com/furtivetrax
https://www.instagram.com/furtive.sasha/
https://ra.co/dj/furtive