The Signal and the Noise is still excellent
2025-11-05
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, but The Signal and the Noise still makes my top 10[1]. 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 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![2]
Footnotes
[1] Though it's possible that it got bumped down one spot by Musical Transients, this year.
[2] Just remember to have a hanky ready for when you get to The Frosted Pane: it breaks my heart every single time.