The first time I heard Arianespace’s music, it made me think of the direct work of Carl Sandburg - a man like this is making room for the echoes of dream and past. The album’s release coincided with a year of soul-searching in the US for artists who think deeply about the space between the conscious and the unconscious. Arianespace’s "Don’t Shut Up"is a meditation on the limits of consciousness and the ways that we can use it to perpetuate the prison of the subconscious.

There’s a sense of movement throughout "Don’t Shut Up", the strongest and most cohesive track being the title track which follows a stark and evocative montage. The album’s title refers to “Don’t shut your blinds,” a reference to the many-colored lights that dot the American landscape, and the way that these colors can’t be ignored. The album is part of the revival of the far-out aesthetic of art-house cinema that has been on the rise in the US for the past few years, but it’s the first time I’ve heard of it. In “Sunshine Is The New Blood” there is a scene where a woman is dressed in a wide-brimmed hat, which accentuates her piercing eyes, and when a stranger approaches her, she pulls the hat back down, spitting on the carpet as if to say “you say I look like a bitch.” Arianespace’s “Don’t Shut Up” takes a similar tack, with the song “I know in my head I’m going crazy” that follows a wily synth line.