Split Apex

***80% of the planet’s oceans remain unexplored by humans. The vastness, extreme pressure, cold temperatures and darkness of the underwater depths make it incredibly difficult to explore. New York independent record label Ever/Never Records has a solution—send Split Apex to traverse and survey the liquid expanse that covers the greater part of the Earth. What could go wrong? Unlike the crew who manned the ill- fated Titan submersible, the two members of Split Apex—Jussi Palmusaari (guitar, electronics, percussion) and Peter Blundell (voice, bass)—will navigate the oceanic abyss as if they were born to it. Split Apex makes music that thrives under pressure, a sonar- equipped manta ray that plunges so deep it emerges into an alien landscape few humans have witnessed. In other words, Split Apex leads listeners into unchartered waters and reveals sounds yet unheard.

Split Apex formed in Autumn 2024 and quickly entered a sustained period of rehearsing and recording in Croydon, South London. Palmusaari came to London from his native Finland, where he played with Preesens during the late ‘90s and early 2000s. As for Blundell, Split Apex exists in a continuum that began with innovative beyond-rock trio Mosquitoes which led to his current work in Komare with Dominic Goodman (also from Mosquitoes). Following a self-released cassette earlier in 2025, Ever/Never commits Split Apex’s vinyl debut—Thoughts In 3D—to wax and it’s a late-breaking entry into the best album of the year conversation. Across five extended tracks, Split Apex roams the depths with unerring grace, sending up transmissions as they bear witness to new vistas forming before them. Blundell sounds as if he’s trying to describe, in clinical terms, the sights he is seeing and the listener cannot tell if he is stricken with terror or awed by beauty. “Peninsula” is the descent, all submarine bass and clanging guitar noise until “Crux Machine” settles into the silt and is slowly engulfed by a lonely guitar figure and loops of throbbing low end. If The Shadow Ring quit being poets and became mad scientists, you would have “Cast In Light.” The title track slithers along the sea floor, leaving trails of glowing synthesizer lines for “People, Nerves” to follow back up to the surface, wiser now for having stared straight into the gaping maw of raw and mangled beauty that is Split Apex.

—Erick Bradshaw (Spin Age Blasters with Creamo Coyl on WFMU)