★★★★☆
Say Doug Quaid had a change of heart about wanting to see the Red Planet, and instead fancied a trip to the sandy beaches on say, the rings of Saturn. The in-flight entertainment and music welcoming him to the hotel lobby would’ve been down to Groundislava. Like he’s working a sonic etch-a-sketch where there are absolutely no curves to be found, Jasper Patterson measures the finest of margins that separates the beats scene from chillwave and Feel Me from fantasy doodle to emotional entrenchment.
On the one hand this is of a cheesily incidental tingle exhaling sweet nothings under the stars and through the 80s (an era that Patterson’s family tree knows only too well). On the other its powerful electro plateaux are scarily addictive, keyboards undercut with bass to blow the ambience wide open such as on “Cool Party” or the unexpected thrills of “Living Under a Rock”, likened to Groundislava remixing that Colbys finale where Fallon gets abducted by aliens. Or, option #3, it’s the most restful space-age resort of the mind imaginable (“Jasper’s Song II”), kind of dilapidated in dry ice but with a charming fire in its eyes like a cabaret music box still making it through revolutions. Whereas most in the field lower the temperature until icicles start forming around ears, GiL is forever warm, a bit sulky in places but always aglow, whether human or supernatural.
File under: Com Truise, M Fusion, Shlohmo
