Earlier this year, TR/ST began teasing a new album. The dark synth project from musician Robert Alfons finally reveals all the details. The new album is called Performance, and it’s due out September 13.
Performance will be TR/ST’s fifth full-length studio album and his first since joining the influential darkwave label Dais Records. It will be the follow-up to a pair of albums he released in 2019 called The Destroyer – Parts 1 and 2. I named The Destroyer Part 1 the best album of the year.
In conjunction with the announcement, TR/ST also released a new song called “All At Once.” It follows the previously released single, “Soon.” Both of those tracks, as well as 2022’s “The Shore,” appear on the new album.
Notably, the songs on Performance are co-produced with Los Angeles-based music producer Nightfeelings, aka Nick Weiss, who is one-half of the electronic music duo Teengirl Fantasy. TR/ST no longer appears to be working with longtime collaborator Maya Postepski, who returned to the project in 2019 to coproduce several songs.
Performance is a somewhat understated title compared to previous TR/ST releases like Joyland and The Destroyer. Here’s what the press release says about his new album:
The title alludes to a friend’s offhand remark about Alfons’ intrinsically performative nature. The music moves between beauty and bitterness, anthem and anguish, the sound of melancholia gone massive. Track after track, Alfons wields pop dynamics and brooding production wizardry like a weapon, spiraling through a roll call of hits. Throughout, there’s a sense of emotional turmoil elevated tostrange heights, stained by guilt and ghosts and the memory of those wronged and those still unforgiven.
As a world unto itself, Performance is persuasive, immersive, and intoxicating, at the threshold of stirring and disturbing. Alfons’ voice is the anchor in the storm, singing a collage of impressions and confessions with a smeared, stream of consciousness logic. He’s both observer and instigator, performer and playwright, liberated by the stage and the night.
In January, TR/ST released a self-titled EP that includes a cover of the Pet Shop Boys classic, “Being Boring,” and the official release of fan-favorite track “Slug.”
You can pre-order Performance at Bandcamp and other outlets.
Performance tracklisting and cover art
Performance contains nine songs:
- Soon
- Regret
- All at Once
- The Shore
- Boys of LA
- Clowned
- Dark Day
- Performance
- Warp
