“Involved is a duo from Planet Earth / Outer Space. Well, the duo formed in late 2012, as an international effort between Joe Dorsey from the USA (Dorsey lives in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, but he hails from Frederick, Maryland) and Reivilo Enoignor hails… from Pyongyang, North Korea!? No, can’t be so? My guess is Brussels, Belgium, as he (Enoignor, that is) used to be in a band called Battlestations (based in Brussels). Joe Dorsey (formerly of Until Sunrise, and Ocean Architecture) discovered and fell in love with Battlestations’ 2012 album, In A Cold Embrace. So, Joe got in touch with Battlestations, and he sent some of his previous work. Reivilo Enoignor replied, and the Involved project was born. So the story goes. Involved is a true international, internet-based collaboration between Dorsey (on keyboards, guitar, vocals/vocoder, production) and Enoignor (keyboards, electronics, programming/production, vocoder). Inter-Atlantic. Intergalactic.
Involved’s influences vary widely, including Tangerine Dream, Pet Shop Boys, Massive Attack, Cult of Luna, Anathema and (Norwegians) Ulver. Where Enoignor namedrops Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Yellow Magic Orchestra, lots of soundtracks and past masters, Dorsey drops Vangelis, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Battlestations, Aphex Twin, Massive Attack, and Portishead as well. The twosome finsihed their debut album, Revolving Maze last November (they put out Implant EP, Hidden Shoal, in September 2013), but the album’s not released until 19th September 2014. The first taster is “Machiavella”, which is a fascinating piece of music. Dark ambience, a bit on the dramatic side, heavy on the synth. It’s an atmospheric, cosmic vibe, and the track is sort of semi-scary. Yes, the Tangerine Dream (and/or Vangelis) link is quite clear. I get these teenage flashbacks, when I listened a lot to TD (and Vangelis). Hidden Shoal describe the duo to: “…fuse the psychedelic sounds of ’70s kosmische with ’80s electronic and more modern ambient styles, creating evocative, cinematic music.” Which is a good description. A bit on the side; ‘Machiavellianism’ means (according to the Oxford English Dictionary): “…the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct”. The words ‘cunning’ and ‘duplicity’ could both be tagged as keywords when trying to describe Involved’s musical world. File under ‘cool and scary’, ‘the sound of sci-fi’, and make sure you check out the pulse of Revolving Maze.”