Album Review, Aircraft of Tomorrow, Alas Euphoric

Former Hot Press graphic designer Paul Woodfull has had an interesting artistic career since leaving this parish more than two decades ago. He’s probably best known as the musical satirist behind irreverent U2 “tribute” act The Joshua Trio, and the permanently pissed republican balladeer Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly.
Not that those ventures weren’t well thought out and executed, but his latest project Aircraft Of Tomorrow – a Dublin-based electronic/multimedia collaboration with designer Alastair Keady – is a far more overtly serious creative affair.
Alas Euphoric is a visual as well as audio experience, and Keady’s compelling videos – which they describe as “motion pieces informed by a graphic design vocabulary” – can be viewed on their website (aircraftoftomorrow.com). The music, meanwhile, is absolutely sublime. And straight out of a Crumlin studio.
Clearly influenced by the likes of electro experimentalists like Sakamoto, Autechre, Glass, Eno, Orbital and Low-period Bowie, Woodfull’s atmospheric soundscapes draw from a wide palette of genres, ranging from cinema soundtrack and ambient to avant-garde experimentation.
He describes them as being spawned from emotion – honest, heartfelt expressions and responses to significant issues in his life (such as the deaths of loved ones).
It’s not really an album that you can pinpoint specific tracks from. Rather, it’s a 44-minute listening experience. Euphoric, soulful, intelligent, occasionally tender, and deeply layered, Alas Euphoric offers a first class flight of imagination all the way. Climb aboard, buckle up, pour a glass, and enter Tomorrow’s world…