Album Review: Pablo Bolivar / ‘Must’ (Avant Roots)

Pablo Bolivar Must

★★★☆☆

Into the bar groove slips Spaniard Pablo Bolivar, unfurling the most dulcet of deep draws wrapped in velvet and silks. Feathery and watery as one, where chords glide with a hazy quality akin to speakers developing a spritz spray action, it’s gentle to the point of being dreamlike, even installing its own casual chatter above the beats on “Eleven Years” to emphasise its pre/post, but never peak, clubbing practicality. So in preparing you to dance, but not following through and leaving with a trail of Zs, Bolivar curates siestas and dance music for when it’s too hot for your tailfeather to be truly activated, equal parts lonesome and intimate.

Its persona, just above a whisper and posturing with a sophistication that while radiating heat can still be found running a comb through super slick hair, is hard to criticise when it comes so honey-dipped, yet Must is undone by its own lushness. One-dimensional, slow burning electronics that are an advocate of only negligible variation, Bolivar’s sleekness is entirely unmemorable; if its purpose is the dreamlike, then that’s all well and good, but it’ll fast fade during daytime vigilance. It represents the lover that’s super nice and would do anything for you, but leaves you wishing he had more fire in his belly as his teeters on being a soft touch.

Perfect for when the coffee maker comes into play as a wooing device, yet you’re bound to find something similar buried in your headphones already.

File under: Paper, Pulshar, Ivano Tetelepta