#captured visions

Captured Visions explores an internalized and austere ambient headspace, with music that touches on organic soundscapes, field recordings, cosmic dream tones, arcane loops of naturalistic beauty, paradises of post-classical decay, and the more beatless, atmospheric, and esoteric textures from the worlds of dub techno and IDM. The label is headed by Barefoot and The Vision Reels, and in addition to releasing works by both of these artists, Captured Visions has also put out tapes from Inhmost, ovid, RVSHES, and Undveld. The newest release from the label however, is a slight diversion in style, and results in a revelatory surprise. On Eye of Grace, sound artist and producer Nathan Stephenson uses his moniker Arcade to drop a hypnotic, hallucinatory, and groove heavy four track set which features delirium dosed deep house, brainbombing and breakdance inducing electro, and various strains of chemically enhanced dub...whether that's imaginative and interstellar dub techno, or etheric ambient dub primed for chillout room mind-expansion. Though it is all too short, it is one of the highlights of the year so far…just as immersive, enveloping, and environmental as anything else the label has released, but aimed more directly at body burning activation and sensual soul stimulation.

Arcade - Eye of Grace (Captured Visions, 2026) In “Grace 01,” cymbal taps and sub-bass throbs introduce a midnight groove, where diva soul snippets melt into mist. Technoid cymbals flitter into the flow, and delay doused bongo beats and primitive groove box rimshots move in counterpoint, while synths emerge like a shadowy twilight balm. Laconic chords drift in the background, and the whole thing evokes for me a heady and hypnotizing Larry Heard vibe, especially his productions for Guidance Recordings’ Hi-Fidelity House comps, and his contributions to the Abstract Fusion series on Track Mode/Music Is… There are moments where the bass beats cut away, and where cooling chord strokes calm the spirit as snare smacks and tropical percussive accents dance in some exotic moonlit forest. And as the beats return, a touch of downcast and spectral jazz threads into the astral aura…with melodic textures sitting in a middle ground between vocal scats and evocative woods…while everything is somehow infused with a touch of Rhythm & Sound-style dub energy. Next comes “Grace 02,” where swirling cosmic chords, laser oscillations, and a pounding four four kick bring the mood into the dark and sweaty depths of the club space. Neon colored ghost hazes sing in the background and big bulbous basslines jack beneath a combination of liquid melodic motions and slow rave squelches, and the result is a heady merging of dub techno hypnotism and heavy deep house mesmerism. Cloudy chord patterns hover in the sky, and everything wavers through layers of fluid lysergia, yet it feels so minimalistic, and seems to proceed in a sort of delirious slow motion. Ricochet sci-fi fx counteract rigid hi-hat patterns as the mix melts through faded rainbow colorations, and seared siren songs of psychedelic sunshine wrap around everything.

“Groce 03” is particularly wild, as mechanoid breakbeats skitter and squelch on some faraway solar surface. Looping liquid melodies join the cyclic dance as electro kicks bring a deep dynamic energy…like breakdance music for android aliens. Subliminal emcee chants land in the background as the hallucinatory groove keeps pulsing and pounding out into the far reaches of cosmos, with repeating sexual soul samples adding an extra dimension of hedonic enticement. Further layers of interstellar intensity join in via pinging fantasy synths and fourth world insect samples, and telephonic bubble patterns ascend on stairways of starbeams…all before the track breaks down into a melancholic melodic outro. In final cut “Grace 04,”  there are breathing percussive pulses and flamboyant palm-muted rock riffs submerged into a chillout headcloud. Trance voices loop, and is everything subsumed into a looping and pulsing cloudscape of dub dream hypnosis, where granular cymbal taps and echo-effected snares bounce off of infinite surfaces before repeating into some unfathomably deep void. Haunted melodic vapors warble and waver, heavy chugging basslines are reduced to a buried whisper, and at some point, a direct four-four kick drum pushes to the fore, adding kinetic energy to flowing ambient dub dreamworld….taking what was perviously a cloud like vapor structure into a slightly more anxious and energized evocation of Chain Reaction style textural mind-expansion. And at the end, a sudden cut away from the rhythms leads to an expanse of echoing and time-morphing voices… with a strange and experimental Orb like effect that carries to the close.