Space Cadet

At its core Space Cadet is imbued with a wide-eyed wanderlust throughout its lucid synths and spacious mixes. On the outside, well, it's just the same.

The second record in Good's trilogy of albums, Space Cadet follows the story of an anonymous space cadet, through - in Good's own words - "the peak of his adventures in space". Compared to (in the order of the story, though note that the order of release is reversed) the bright, youthful A Little Something before it, and the progressive atmospheres of Nothing Out Here after it, Space Cadet is mature but unrestrained. It carries no burdens upon its shoulders; it merely exists for the journey.

And what a journey it is. Through the first three shorter tracks, Nigel Good proves the worth of his optimistic, largely upbeat approach to songwriting, with "An Adventure" swinging wonderfully and making the full use of its runtime to sequence into the odyssey of "No Way Back Up", complemented by Illuminor's vocal. "No Way Back Up" is the other side of the coin - an airy, unrelenting house beat like a sheet of clouded glass that, with tempered sound design, sprawls broad and monolithic so as to emphasise the gentle nature of the cuts after it, a gentle nature present throughout the record but prominently in the tracks that follow: the deep-house electropop stylistics of "Disappear"; the all-enveloping ambience of "Stellar"; the bright vocal chops and generally bouncy quality through the next section.

This is where Good truly excels. Faint funk lines thread through a crystalline mixdown that feels itself out as it progresses. It's deceptively easy to believe their beauty lies in simplicity, though, in truth, much of it does, but equally as much of it is intertwined with an intricate web of sound design that, at times, seems to be an entity entirely of its own. It is almost as a base for Good to bounce his songwriting off of, dipping his melodies into this web at the limbo space between movements - and often through them - to imbue each section of each track with finely strung synths and the ever-overlooked vocal chop that is so characteristic of the time, and  characteristic of Good himself. It appears in "Cliché Lovesong", perhaps as a homage to Fenomenon's vocals, and again in "Space Plus One", and again in "Nova" (amongst others).

Once the record breaches "Nova", though, there are far more interesting things to talk about than mere vocal chops. This track is an explosion in every sense of the word. Even as it starts up happily, it erupts into a fiery complextro drop that is completely uncharacteristic of the record before it. There is no malicious intent in "Nova", though; there is no ripping apart of the soundscape, or even much tonal whiplash. There's surprise, sure, there's shock, but retrospectively it feels like a well-thought-out continuation of Space Cadet's motifs, almost as a climax for the record as well as a cue for experimentalism, with Good branching out into liquid drum n bass in "Cloudstepper" before the broiling synthwave finale with Go Periscope's confident vocal over "Don't Want To Go". There's a sense that upon this final movement predicates the material of a properly successful album - one that can maintain a cohesive mood and a crafted storyline, whilst also seamlessly integrating switchups and shock factor. If nothing else, it's felt in Space Cadet's engagement.

Of the three records in his trilogy, Space Cadet deserves the flowers it receives for being the strongest of them. It's made him something of a legend in downtempo circles, and perhaps the innocent spiritedness of Space Cadet isn't quite suited to a carved legendary status - nevertheless, it carries it, in all its childlike glory.

Listen on Spotify here.