J. Moya’s Noise of Time is a stripped down series of moments and memories, of madness and melancholia. And in a musical landscape populated with a synthed-out sounds, bubblegum pop lyrics, and heart stopping-download-a-minute party beats, J.Moya’s raw unadulterated homage to creativity and simplicity is pure anarchy.

While each song can certainly stand on its own, the beauty of Noise of Time is its ability to lure listeners into a sonic odyssey of the junctures that make up the life of a musicophiliac. This post-rock album isn’t just an invitation into the process of an artist, but a trip into the surreal soundscape where memories and dreams are intertwined.

Here, in a world that’s weird and wired, the artist has done what so many have failed to do: revive the lost art of the album. J.Moya presents to his listeners what many of us, in our haste to compulsively consume, have forgotten—that music is supposed to make us remember, to make us feel, and to arrest a moment in time.

An album is a collection of stories. In Noise of Time J.Moya has deftly displayed his skill at creating a narrative that leads us into his journey as an artist, a musician, and a man, while allowing audiences to feel, to remember, and to reflect with him. The album, in all its deceptive complexity, takes listeners to the edge in such a sophisticated and subtle way that they don’t even realize it.

And it’s no fluke. There’s a clear dramatic structure to the arrangement of each song. Listeners are first coaxed into the world of this “J.Moya”—a sonic builder of sorts—with Carmet et Error, a song steeped in the mysticism and mystery that’s reminiscent of Led Zeppelin and Ravi Shankar. The mood shifts seamlessly, spilling to the next song—the darker yet poetic Center Into the Slide. Its dark and moody undertones are sustained with the steady riffs of Black Flare. Here, the mind’s eye is filled with images of storm clouds gathering—leading one to a darker, deconstructed world of Lynchian-inspired madness.

But there’s light to this indigo period, with Appropriation of Time, which takes a whimsical turn. Then playfulness in the Science of Departures, a trippy tune that rounds out the rest of the album. But this album is not without grit: Wax and Honey is steeped in experimentation that’s simultaneously elegant yet glowers with a wild, raw intensity that marks this artist as someone who could be—or is destined to be—a future music pioneer. The final two songs, Aonides for the Muses and Sounds from Memory, take listeners back to the start of this music memoir—nostalgic and whimsical, without being saccharine or losing its punch.

The album is a storybook of contradictions: it’s composed yet raw, instrumental yet infused with narrative, meticulously arranged yet brazen and bold. Noise of Time is a journey into the valleys of sound—the landscape of the artist’s mind.

-Lola Abrera