Survey Channel – Functional Gloss
Buffalo’s ever-evolving electronic music scene continues to yield fascinating projects, and Survey Channel, the alias of Matt Donatelli, stands firmly at the forefront of its ambient exploration. With Functional Gloss, Donatelli delivers his fifth full-length album, adding another meticulously-crafted chapter to a discography that has steadily blossomed since his 2019 debut, Mulberry. In the intervening years, Survey Channel has has become synonymous with a particular brand of thoughtful, exploratory electronica, gathering a respectable following from such a prolific output over the past six years. Functional Gloss is our album of the week.
At its core, Functional Gloss operates within the realm of ambient electronica, yet it’s an ambient experience imbued with a restless energy. While certain tracks embrace beat-driven structures, the album as a whole resists easy categorization, comfortably inhabiting the spaces of IDM while pushing against the conventional boundaries of electronic music. Listeners familiar with titans like Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin will find a lot to love here. The album is deeply meditative, characterized by lush, synth-forward textures and unfurl and evolve with each track. It’s a sound that evokes the essence of the natural world, translated and refracted through a distinctly digital lens, as if capturing the unheard frequencies of a technological ecosystem.
The album rewards focused attention, and is best absorbed in its entirety through a pair of high quality headphones (seriously reconsider if you’re thinking your tinny phone speakers will do this one justice). Although a holistic listen is recommended, certain compositions stand out. “Deep Vision” distinguishes itself with its placid sonic landscape, pulling the listener into it’s depths with a steady beat and vocoded fragments. “Total Station” is peak immersion, with a metallic, alien allure, and the beat of “Mini Columns” hops playfully across an ethereal, crystalline backdrop.
Unplugging from Functional Gloss will feel like a recalibration if approached with the right mindset; the album’s nine tracks are potent, hypnotic, and strangely restorative. There’s an unexpected irony here: amidst the immersive allure of technology, there remains a quiet beauty in the act of disconnecting for a while. Functional Gloss is a good reminder of that.
Categorised in: Album of the Week
This post was written by Ronald Walczyk