“I had an idea to take a set of material, then develop and elevate it the way a script becomes a film.” says Ben Marcantel when asked about the latest sugar sk*-*lls album, Star Time. Working from that headspace he joined forces with new members Tye Bellar (Financier) and G. Seth West (Gray Worry) to craft a body of work that impressively contemplates both the largess of time itself and the minutiae of personal insecurities; all manifested through a thick wall of electronic pop sounds. Historically, sugar sk*-*lls has served as a pseudonym for explorations in chiptune and AI generative sounds (well before AI was the buzzword of the day) but after a 7” release in 2016 with Financier, Marcantel inquired if the two would work with him. “We initially thought we were just going to print a few of his MIDI tracks through some vintage synths and that would be it. But each time we worked together, we pushed further into the songs, and before long it was anything goes. Ben gave us complete freedom to contribute as equals,” remarks G. Seth West on the collaborative development. Marcantel’s original notion to develop and elevate a body of work as if it were a film script could not have been more prescient. The development of Star Time required adding new minds to the songs, rewriting constantly, honing with the materials they had present and never losing sight that no matter how compelling it sounds, an emotional core is tantamount to success.