THE SIGNAL AND THE NOISE IS STILL EXCELLENT
       
       2025-11-05
       
 (IMG) The Signal and The Noise album cover, showing a man in a dark room shining a torch on a woman, tied up and lying on a wooden floor, with her hand on a note.
       13 years ago I wrote a blog post praising The Signal and the Noise by Andrew
       Paul Regan / Pagan Wanderer Lu. It's still excellent.
       I may have raved about other concept albums in the meantime (this one, for
       example...), but The Signal and the Noise still makes my top 10 (Though it's
       possible that it got bumped down one spot by Musical Transients, this year.).
       I've listened to it twice this week, and I still love it.
       But I probably love it differently than I used to.
       Spy Numbers / One Time Pad remains my favourite pair of tracks on the album,
       as it always was: like so much of Andy's music it tells a story that feels
       almost like it belongs to a parallel universe... but that's still relatable
       and compelling and delightful. And a fun little bop, too.
       But In Potential, which I initially declared "a little weaker than the rest"
       of the album, has grown on me immensely over the course of the last decade. It
       presents an optimistic, humanistic conclusion to the album that I look forward
       to every time. After John Frum Will Return and Checker Charlie open the album
       in a way that warns us, almost prophetically, about the dangers of narrow
       target-lock thinking and AI dependence (In a upbeat and bouncy way, though.
       These are cheers, not dirges.), In Potential provides a beautiful and hopeful
       introspective about humanity and encourages an attitude of... just being
       gentle and forgiving with ourselves, I guess.
       So yeah, the whole thing remains fantastic. And better yet: Andy announced
       about six weeks ago that all of his music is now available under a
       free/pay-what-you-like model, so if you missed it the first time around, now's
       your opportunity to play catch-up! (Just remember to have a hanky ready for
       when you get to The Frosted Pane: it breaks my heart every single time.)
       
       LINKS
       
 (HTM) My 2012 blog post about The Signal and the Noise
 (HTM) The Signal and the Noise
 (HTM) Andrew Paul Regan / Pagan Wanderer Lu
 (HTM) One of several blog posts I wrote about Musical Transients
 (HTM) My first blog post about Musical Transients
 (HTM) Andy announced about six weeks ago
 (HTM) The Frosted Pane