“Signals“ is the seventh album from Kevin Dooley (zerO One) on the Waveform label renowned for ambient and chill electronic music, which they like to call “exotic electronica”. This set runs for a generous 71 minutes, featuring 16 tracks that explore themes of space and science fiction.

The style of music on this album best fits within the Psydub subgenre of electronic music, blending atmospheric space soundscapes, layered synthesised textures and intricate rhythms. The tracks are typified by simple repeating melodies, pronounced rasping acid bass lines and a sprinkling of quirky retro science fiction B-movie voice samples.

Antonio Margheriti’s debut film “Space-Men” (AKA “Assignment: Outer Space”) is sampled for the first track, and this is joined by many other movie samples too obscure to easily identify. In addition, Canadian actor Raymond Massey‘s 1950s FDA public service announcement about fraudulent healthcare technology is sampled for the track “Z-Ray” (it was claimed such rays cured arthritis!).

The first track, Zulu, is my favourite and provides a great start to the album. The name is a reference to the codename and spacecraft for Space-Men's protagonist, New York reporter Ray Peterson, who launches into space aboard the spaceship Bravo Zulu 88. This track is very danceable, varied, and an adventure in synthesised sounds and melodies. There is good use of stereo for the bassline and narrative samples, and there are some interesting filtered drums in the breakdown.

Another favourite is the hypnotic, lumbering “Spacewalk” with a multi-layered baseline, plucked synth-harp melody and choral pads. It successfully manages to capture the comically cumbersome nature of an EVA spacesuit floating above a beautiful, tranquil Earth. It would be a nice tribute to Alexei Leonov.

Most of the album is similarly laid-back; however, there are a few up-tempo tracks included with standard four-to-the-floor rhythms, notably “Miracle”, “AtOmic” and “Tuvanica”. The latter uses curious ethnic-sounding voices rhythmically and creatively. This is also the case on the track “Ping”, which has low-pitch staccato voice notes that evoke those Fairlight CM sounds used by The Art of Noise in compositions such as “Close (To the Edit)”. Bearing in mind the album title, “Ping” may represent the sort of short message sent out by groups like Active SETI to attract extraterrestrial signals; however, it is equally apt here for the use of a Casio VL-Tone style “pinging” rhythm that makes a surprise appearance halfway through the track. Did Kevin actually use that legendary little 1980s device? Well, if it was good enough for Depeche Mode and The Human League, then why not?

Although some tracks might seem overly simplistic and repetitive at first, I find that “Signals“ is one of those albums that definitely grows on you the more you listen to it. The generous running time provides plenty to like with a massive variety of electronic sounds, samples, and atmospheric soundscapes best enjoyed in headphones. Now, is there any clever vintage sci-fi film and TV buff who can name all of the sources Kevin has used?