Synth Single Review: “Time Machine” by Oscillian

by Karl Magi

Oscillian’s “Time Machine” drenches me in a mood of remembrance that fills the melting synth with a nostalgic pang as Oscillian contemplates what he’s lost and can’t recapture. An almost spiritual reverence fills the notes of the melody, wrapping around Oscillian’s breath-warmed performance and drifting into eternity with a pool of depth below.

Vibrating with peaceful radiance, delicate notes sparkle and the vocals are full of hurt as guitar notes move with interlocking lusciousness. A wave of brokenhearted recall flows from the vocals and creates an emotional gut punch for me. Rhythmic patterns add shape while the memories tumble from Oscillian’s voice, seizing the pain within the words.

Twisting notes move like a thousand thoughts at midnight as widely echoing percussion supports the song’s melancholy essence, looking back, before rising guitar creates a feeling of cascading thoughts taking over before the song ends.

Musing that he might be able to “build a time machine to show me the way” and tell him not to abandon his dreams and not to stay, the narrator adds that “a lesson learned the hard way is a lesson learned too much.” Again he talks about building a time machine “to have never felt your touch.”

Even if he could build a time machine, our storyteller knows that it won’t alter who he’s become or change his failures and opportunities. He points out that “in the end we all pay the price of time.” He talks about being in a coffee shop at four in the morning and the song’s subject gave him a glance that made him crumble.

“Behind the wall of certitude, I feel the beat of solitude, serious as a heart attack,” while the song’s subject hides behind their shadow. He tells them that they might as well remain “within that empty shell” that he always knew was there and which no time machine can change.