Adventure Lesser Known

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About

Baltimore and Wham City resident Adventure’s 2008 self-titled debut was an energetic journey through the outer expanses of a SID chip, an experience that took listeners whizzing over pixelated mountains and explored the darker corners of the most modernized urban setting. This limited tonal range and lack of human vocals (save for a few dialogue samples from Bladerunner) may have made the music of Adventure seem a bit cold or impersonal, but on his newest release, Lesser Known, Benny Boeldt has brightened up his sound, adding soaring synth blasts and maximalist flourishes a la M83.

The airy snare and pulsing bass that open the album act as fanfare, like Boeldt welcoming the listener into the spacious new environment of Lesser Known. His aesthetic remains grounded in the 1980s, but the songs sound more like retro-futuristic radio hits than the arcade-conjuring modulations of his first release. On tracks like “Fool’s Paradise” and “Smoke and Mirrors,” Boeldt splits the difference between New Order and Nu Shooz, creating a sound that could please even the most cynical bedroom moper while gratifying any party-goer who’s simply looking to dance. Those fearing a record of wistful 80s pop facsimiles will be pleased to hear tunes like “Relax the Mind” and “Lights Out” connecting the dots that link Giorgio Moroder and his modern hit-making scion Dr. Luke. Dance beats permeate the bulk of Lesser Known, but the two closing songs introduce pensive atmospheres, perhaps laying the framework for Boeldt’s future musical ventures.

Artist Bio

Since moving to Baltimore in 2007 with the encouragement of his friends Dan Deacon, OCDJ, and Videohippos, Benny Boeldt has made three full-length albums as Adventure and toured extensively with his own music and as a member of the Dan Deacon Ensemble. A U.S. tour with labelmate Toro Y Moi in the spring of 2011 was a fitting way to celebrate that season’s release of Lesser Known, Adventure’s second album for Carpark and its first album of pop songs. Adventure’s third LP is Weird Work, to be released in April 2013.

Weird Work is an extension of the world Boeldt created with Lesser Known, but without that record’s use of electronic pop elements such as vocal melodies and lyrics. It’s a new album of Adventure’s signature 8-bit-infused IDM. According to Boeldt, making Weird Work was about finding himself in his music again, and celebrating the act of creation. The album “is about being awkward, and anxious,” Boeldt says. “Ugly yet beautiful. Most of all, this record is about working hard, and cherishing any and all time left aside for creative endeavor.”

Boeldt grew up in Durham, North Carolina and attended East Carolina University in Greenville, NC. The school’s slogan, “Tomorrow starts here,” is an apt descriptor for Adventure’s music, which sounds both futuristic and of-the-moment. At ECU, he studied painting and drawing alongside friends and fellow future Baltimore residents Future Islands. It was here that Boeldt first developed an interest in writing and composing electronic music.