Pixel Wilderness represents the third and final instalment in the Automatic Tendencies EP trilogy. The project comprises three EPs released over a six-month(ish) period – Automatic Tendencies, Melted Medium and now Pixel Wilderness.

Each EP embraces a mixtape aesthetic, by including alternative “sunken” versions by the band as well as covers and remixes of new Firestations tracks by other artists. Band member and artist Laura Copsey has curated collections of limited-edition artworks that expand on the ideas within each release. The lead track from each project has been released as part of Lost Map’s Postmap Club subscription series.

Since their last album The Year Dot, released on Lost Map in 2018, Firestations have refined their brand of conceptual alt-pop, and new songs take a closer look at themes of identity, belonging, progress and escapism. ‘Sun In Your Eyes’ is a song from the early days the band that has existed in various unreleased forms since then, and now shimmers into focus through the lens of the band’s more recent sonic experiments. The message of resilience in the verse “you are stronger and tougher than you think, you’re not going down any time soon”, is questioned by an uneasy backdrop of shifting drones and washes of noise, before being resoundingly affirmed by a strident harmonic chorus “you’re not going down with the sun in your eyes”. The band sound like they are moving as one, possessed and intoxicated by the mantra-like refrain and rolling chord progression.

The EP’s opening track, ‘Machine Country’, is a driving retro-futurist lament looking at the highs and lows of losing your sense of self in the wild hinterland of the internet. ‘It’s Unreal’ continues in this vein, woozy guitar loops and washed-out synth drones framing lyrics about dissociation and the pressures of keeping it together “don’t ask me to be someone I’m not, like clouds are mountains in the sky”. ‘Outpost Index (Sunken Version)’ sees the band continuing their project of taking their own songs and presenting them in an alternative way; this synth-pop track from the last EP is reimagined as an intimate fingerpicked guitar ballad with Mike and Laura’s vocals upfront and affecting.

For the cover version the band have recruited friends and fellow drone-pop travellers The Leaf Library, who have completely transformed Melted Medium track The Circular. Their version takes the cyclical, hypnotic elements of the original and expands them into a cathartic six-minute wave of distorted guitar, saxophone interjections and blissed-out vocals.

The last track on Pixel Wilderness is a remix of Firestations’ 77-minute sonic experiment ‘Dream Home’, by Ocean Moon (aka Jon Tye). As well as being one half of the brain behind independent label Lo Recordings, Jon is also a musician/producer who specialises in spacious, deep and meditative sounds. With his ‘Long Ago and Far Away’ mix of ‘Dream Home’ – a B-side to the ‘Sun In Your Eyes’ single – he has created a shimmering sonic landscape utilising fragments of vocals and basslines from the original.

ABOUT THE ART COLLECTIONS:

For each Automatic Tendencies release, band-member and artist Laura Copsey has been curating collections of limited-edition artworks that expand on ideas and themes within the songs. Each EP in the series is linked to a classical element: Automatic Tendencies water, Melted Medium fire and Pixel Wilderness earth.

During lockdown, when much of the work for Pixel Wilderness was undertaken, accessing wild places became an even more remote possibility. As a result, this art collection reflects on misremembered landscapes and the power of the imaginary, with physical experience replaced by fantasy. The Sonic Healing Immersion Therapy zine contains drawings, submitted by listeners, of images from their dreams; and an accompanying 12 track playlist of sonic improvisations undertaken by the S.H.I.T. collective in response to each drawing.

The ceramic mountain, made with the help of artist Emily Stapleton-Jefferis, references the Firestations track ‘Greenmount’ (from the Automatic Tendencies EP), inspired by a place in Lancashire song-writer Michael Cranny knew as a child. The polaroid, which is a snapshot of a distorted landscape painting titled 'Didn't Go to School that Day' by artist and outdoor blogger Dan Parnell.