Released by Castles in Space (UK) 4/20/23 on deluxe colored wax LP!

REVIEWS:
"Plying his trade under his own name as well as a raft of pseudonyms including Black Tempel Pyramid, RUFFINI, Teeth Of Glass and Kösmonaut, this is album number, well, you lose count to be honest, from Colarado’s ridiculously prolific Patrick R Park.

Last year’s ‘Transgressive Transmissions’ (also on CiS) was the first Kösmonaut outing in a while, since 2017 in fact. While that was a natty little Berlin School-influenced box of delights, Contagion Vapers’ – made at the same time – heads off into a whole different sound world. As you might guess from the artwork, vapourwave is in the house, but there’s more to what’s going on here than slo-mo retro spangle.

In the year that marks the 50th anniversary of ‘Tubular Bells’, the cascading bright chimes on the 12-minute title track would’ve had Virgin Records (1970s version) cocking an ear in appreciation. It was only last week I was saying how it takes knackers the size of footballs (round soccer ones, Partrick) to start an LP with a lengthy track. Guess what? For the second week running an opening track steals the show. Check out Kösmonaut’s nads.

Contagion Vapers feels very acoustic. There’s a certain hustle and bustle to tracks like ‘Kinetic Sand’, which comes fully fitted with a brisk, rattling snare and a warm xylophone chime, while ‘Dream Windows’ tumbles along with a bright repeating motif, the glow of brass and the twang of an acoustic guitar picking its way through a swaying cornfield of delight.

The whole thing has a deliciously hypnotic, mellow motorik drive about it too. Not so much krauty as one hand on the wheel with the window rolled down and a chubby on the go. Which is all good. Park’s work often tends toward the dour, icey end of proceedings, but Contagion Vapers radiates warmth and feels positively upbeat. And you know what? It suits him." - NM (Juno Records)
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"Despite being recorded in a frantic 3-day burst during the pandemic, Kösmonaut’s ‘Contagion Vapours’ album finds a curious sort of cosmic positivity through repetitive rhythms and melodies. This scratches many itches, from the tactile pulse of Harmonia and Cluster, to the more blissful side of Brian Eno.

The title track is a highlight here. It’s one of these pieces of music that does so much with so little. There’s a shuffling drum machine groove, some synthetic flute, deliciously flat-sounding bass, and twittering banjo-esque keyboard arpeggios. ‘Liquid Veil’ (a song title that tells us all we need to know) moves like a long-lost Lone track that was rejected for being too beatific - as it progresses, the instrumentation coalesces into something delightfully intoxicating. An attack of the vapours never sounded so appealing." - Norman Records
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"On slightly more familiar kosmische terrain – though satisfyingly kaleidoscopic in scope – is the return of Patrick R Pärk under his Kösmonaut alias, with Contagion Vapours, also on Castles in Space. Whilst being yet another creative concoction from a DIY artist devised under the stay-at-home shadow of the pandemic, the album is not just a diversion exercise from domestic quarantining.

In fact, the tremendous opening title track is worth the admission fee alone, due to its close-to-twelve-minute multi-layered lushness, bursting with Cluster-laced artificial drum track underpinnings and shimmering synth strata. Across the remaining cuts, Pärk unfurls further fecund tapestries, abundant with electro-organic textures (“Liquid Veil”), Rupert Lally-meets-Cornershop exotica (“Spirit Gates”), Snow Palms-like percussive workouts (“Kinetic Sand”) and the dubby richness Adrian Sherwood applied to his Echo Dek reworking of Primal Scream’s underrated Vanishing Point LP (“Dream Windows”). A variegated treat all told." - Concrete Islands