Author: Matt Oliver

Album Review: Minilogue / ‘Blomma’ (Cocoon)

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Minilogue Blomma

★★★☆☆

Sebastian Mullaert and Marcus Henriksson flicker, disappear then reemerge behind you on an ultimate in mind, body and soul disciplining, sounding so far away yet following you closely. The Swedes perform a synesthetic Morse Code backed by simmering swells. Minilogue don’t specifically aim for widescreen highs, preferring a degree of the grounded so they can dance and unwind to the light of neon-bulbed shapeshifting akin to a jellyfish lightshow.

Deep house beats on “Everything is All You’ve Got” are gently touched, a marveling trust exercise seeing you cradled should you stumble in slow motion. Teetering on the abstract with fades of pianos and blocks of misted instruments running leylines and a consuming angelic presence, “Atoms With Curiosity…” develops a full deep techno regime pushing down on your pleasure centres. Never found pausing despite a seemingly unending stillness, “Forgotten Memories” takes on a racing pulse in a suspended cardiac episode, still telling you to relax even if pupils are dilated.

The snug jazz ether of “Nor Coming Nor Going” and wispy nightcap of the album’s slowly-stirred remainder, support the longest of the eyes-wide-shut sessions “E de nÃ¥n hemma?” Almost an LP in its own right, its naturist scenery pulled from a sounds library, synth swirls, wind chimes, rolling waves and keyboard levitations are sent teleshopping for 45 minutes, until pangs of skepticism and free-minded improvisation seep in to find progression floating through space. For those with time on their side and a mind to flush out.

File under: Son Kite, Trimatic, Global Communication, DeepChord

Album Review: Andrew Bayer / ‘If It Were You, We’d Never Leave’ (Anjunabeats)

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Andrew Bayer If It Were You We'd Never Leave

★★★☆☆

Soap operas, daytime dramas and ad breaks, Andrew Bayer is here for you. Should you not view his shoulder as a convenient one to lean on, prospects await from hitting notes and making feelings clear in all the right, digitally delicate places. The D.C. thought-processor’s chopped beats of “Opening Act” and trip-hoppy brinkmanship of the gnarled “Doomsday” show the follow-up to It’s Artificial is not all sentiment and schmaltz. From an assertive start though, Bayer is never gonna be a badboy.

Seeing the light, he analyses deeper and steadily starts staking out ambient pastures, using piano nostalgias (“All This Will Happen Again” suspending time with the most simple, emotive arrangement) and orchestral, widescreen designs, whirling around your nodding head until they form a halo. The levels of chill-out he achieves go from back-to-mine session with a little bit of the evening’s buzz still going round the room, to meditative stretches that only alone time can do justice to, mixing togetherness and sole/soul contentment, and the sentiment of whatever’s passed, tomorrow is a new day. Bayer also makes you understand his placement on Anjuna, converting trance power into a rolling, eyeball-moistening shimmer.

Valuable as a soft background hum or towering top-of-the-world declaration, putting feet back on the ground once chillwave starts to beckon is crucial to the album’s outlook, taking care of those who can’t quite shut off when downtime calls, and waking up those who’ve drifted away.

File under: Slacker, Underpass, Boom Jinx

Album Review: Gobby / ‘Fashion Lady’ (UNO NYC)

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gobby fashion lady

★★★☆☆

The society pages should take note of a techno collection that sported a New Hat last year, leans to the left, and becomes more and more off the wall until there’s a free-for-all to pap down the runway. Striking posers throughout, you won’t be able to take eyes and ears off Gobby’s lights-camera-action that the dastardly Harlem designer is only too pleased to project through a mass of wires and plug-ins.

Brash curtain raiser “Krylon Surf Magix” amps the analog and gives instant lift-off; a little scattershot, but with Gobby letting you know he’s got this. His loop philosophy is to clamp down and see if the screws come loose, disorientation courtesy of any effects caught in its orbit and tailoring a burgeoning metallic bump. The peak is the acid-drugged “Rashe”, having you doing hyper bunny hops to warehouse techno madness. “Slick Boi Gel” is a cacophony of laser synths twisting the catwalk into a stinging uprising of dry ice, before “Healing Factor” kills the lights with a trundling plus-sized model of ungainly, crunchy minimalism, like tribalism re-translated by an alien race.

Gobby continues the chaotic crowding of the soundbed with the industrial footwork breakout “Lect Hom.” Closing two tracks “Faculty” and “Spilla Drink” loop long, harshly and high, the glamour and glitz suffocated by the blitzing style icon. Beyond a diva, Gobby’s muse is a bruising ball-buster, tight-roping the divide between whatever feels right and dressing in the dark.

File under: Actress, Techno Animal, The Squire of Gothos

Compilation Review: Rodriguez Jr. / ‘Mobilee Back to Back Vol. 7’ (Mobilee)

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Mobilee Back to Back Vol. 7

★★★☆☆

Olivier Mateu is in the Mobilee hotseat to referee a double-disc set of deep house best described as duking it out. Rounding up label highlights reaching deep, tech-tweaking standards, Ray Okpara and David Labeij provide firm fixtures, both in staying on the dancefloor and with their cast iron demeanours, seeing the club as one long strip it can fully extend into (unsurprising, given the press release’s mentioning of Rodriguez’ 10-hours-a-day studio habit). A stiff funkiness has And.Id attempting disco depressurization, one that pushes home the singular loop, whether riff or bass, to propel everything around it. A crossroads of thinking man’s DJ where the cogs and pistons visibly perform, and a spinner riding a buzz out of routine and repetition, the Frenchman plays patiently for vibes to descend, once in a while adding a pinch of class (his remix of “Chi This Wonder Up”).

Re.You’s “Junction” looks to join the trending masses of low slung bass-house while keeping a tribal membership to hand at the same time, taking the doggedness to new determined levels until maximized by Pan-Pot and Safeword, techno-siding breakers of glass chins. As he goes for self/collaborates with those already detailed, disc two sustains the show of one-sided potency. Another dash of the high-rent (“Roads,” the skippier “Nuages”) stands amongst a set of exacting tech-fed pendulums showing only occasional leniency (the friendlier, less taut “Ghetto Blaster”). Slackers need not apply, those fine with burning rubber from the soles of their shoes, pull on your pumps.

File under: Sebo K, Anja Schneider, Tassilo