I first stumbled across Hello Meteor in 2015 while scouring Bandcamp for synthwave music. Those early release I downloaded were your typical city-at-night synthwave. I enjoyed them, but didn’t really pay much more attention.
It wasn’t until 2019 that stumbling across the album Mu & Mea really turned me back on to Hello Meteor again, and I’ve been a regular listener since.
Hello Meteor takes an unmistakably nostalgic 80s cinematic sound including, but not limited to lush pads, electronic fretless bass, electric keys, pianos, and analogue synths, and spans genres with it. Synthwave, chillwave, ambient… it’s pointless trying to pigeonhole. Hello Meteor takes elements of the genres and crafts a unique, cohesive ecosystem.
It’s meticulously crafted, evocative electronic music that is great as a background music to creative pursuits – a sort of mental lubricant, but on the flip side, there is enough going on to hold focused attention. Personally, one of my favourite times to listen is just before sleep. Those sonic landscapes create some incredible imagery in my mind.
In 2021, Hello Meteor started out on the concept of what fans refer to as the ‘Jaladri series’. The premise from the first album in the series, The End of All Land is this:
It is 1894. Following the first moon landing, Earth’s nations engaged in cataclysmic nuclear war, turning our once abundant planet fallow. By 1938, the decades-long space race had revealed Jaladri, a small planet where tropical, temperate islands blanket lush landscapes stretching beyond The End of All Known Land. Travel to Jaladri is arduous and lengthy, but soldier and civilian pathfinders brave tumultuous passage in hope of finding a solution for future and past alike.
It is 1991. Opportunity abounds on Jaladri, now fully colonized. The discovery of a precious algae offers hope for Earth’s arid fortune and a second chance for humanity.
The albums following The End of All Land each take a different perspective of those working on the colonisation of Jaladri and all have an ethereal feel that wonderfully combines the wonder of nature and the excitement of a new world, with the mundanity of the day job.