Monolith Cocktail Blog

Album/Purview by Andrew C. Kidd

Flying Tulpa ‘Forever Lost’
(Stereoscenic Records) 28th February 2025

January 2021. My first introduction to Flying Tulpa, not as Flying Tulpa, but as Liam James Tulpa. Both are aliases of Liam Cassidy. The release was titled Confusion is the First Step Towards Clarity. It centred on ‘internal chaos’. Cassidy captured this in a clever and unfussy way. Three particular highlights on Confusion… were: 1. Finding Reason and Purpose – a piece full of life, with tones almost discernible, but not quite, creating a juxtaposition of familiarity and distance; 2. Between Chaos and the Cosmos and its synergy of synth pointillism and sweeping pads; 3. Trust the Path – organic piano notes that were chaotic and melodic in equal measure. Subsequent releases followed: Faith in the Absence of Certainty (March 2021); Rediscovered (October 2023); Things Come Together, Things Fall Apart (May 2024). Cassidy weaves a consistently common thread through his complex patchwork of sounds. It is tangible yet unreal.

His latest collage is Forever Lost, released on Stereoscenic Records in late February 2025, a label that also features the marvellous Poemme (Angela Klimek) and Ludvig Cimbrelius. Cassidy discusses his inspiration in the accompanying album notes. In effect, as we travel through life, we experience moments where we are lost and others where we ‘find’ ourselves. Through this we seek, and hope for, wisdom as a consequence. Each of the seven track titles serves as a narrative. What follows sonically is even more complex.

Forever Lost opens with the ambiguously titled Signless. Have we started at a crossroad? Or does this reference change occur in the absence of warning? Distant laughter echoes. Choppy synths dazzle. An anchoring bass plays, serving as a pivot so that the listener’s focus immediately shifts away from the syncopated waveforms to revel in a more cyclical form, one that revolves around changing subtly. It spirals hypnotically. Liminal Space follows and features Leif Wyn who Cassidy previously collaborated with on Positive Disintegration (September 2020). Despite its positive key signature, this piece imbues a disconcertedness; and yet, all the same, it is strangely reassuring, like a memory recalled in a sleep-state, evaporating light like molecules of oxygen exhaled after many breaths. Solemnly Staring Out the Window offers progression on this concept of dematerialisation. A sustained, rumbling pad plays under a static-heavy whorl. It is a short bridge, one that takes us into Accepting This Gift. The sound on this latter piece is fuller. It has more depth – more layers, even. A melody has started to surface. To Be Whole Again is suitably choral in form, Gregorian in stature, colourful in tone. Here, Cassidy has composed ambient plainsong. It is complex. It proliferates.

At this point I replayed the second piece on the album, From Place to Place (by doing so, the circle was of course broken, but then I think Cassidy perhaps intended this). Its organ-like, analogue keys seem to be forever-pressed in catharsis. The octaval switch in its final minute is almost celebratory. It is structurally (and audibly) similar to To Be Whole Again. Twice played, never reprised. Everything fades into the distance.

No Expectations is the conclusion. The coil that bound this album has now unravelled. It would be abstruse to claim that everything at this point has become cylindrical; however, the notation form has changed – it is no longer cyclical. Even the pads feel less dense and more metallic. The last couple of minutes are playful (and possibly improvised).

Forever Lost is paradoxically illusory and intelligible. It is also a much more spacious offering from Cassidy. Passages open to close, never returning. Formless swathes plume out endlessly. Yet, none of the pieces are longform (the longest track clocks in at 7-minutes). In the album notes we are offered a positive feedback loop, the outcome of which will be imperfect enlightenment. From becoming lost, to travailing, to achieving self-discovery (of sorts), there is perhaps an acceptance that even when we are unsheathed from the present, our pasts and futures still return to us as muted echoes. The path ahead is almost never predestined. We sleep-walk along it most of the time. These echoing reflections do not serve to awaken us, but rather, offer faint inklings of where to tread next. Andrew C. Kidd

Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years both me and the MC team have featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world: ones that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored, and we only feature artists we have genuine respect for /love or interest in. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to say thanks or show support, than you can now buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail