Review: Many happy returns to Los Angeles imprint Friends of Friends, which with this expansive compilation notches up a decade of championing "one of a kind artists working to find new ways of connecting the digital and analog worlds". The weighty, 20-track collection naturally offers a great snapshot of the label's distinctive musical headspace, languidly strolling between woozy, semi-acoustic trip-hop beats (Somi & Haris Cole), evocative cinematic soundscapes (Cuddle Formation), drowsy redlined ambience (Deru), jazzy warmth (Sweatson Klank), loose-limbed bluesy dub disco (James Alexander Bright), atmospheric, post-house dancefloor shufflers (Keep Shelly In Athens) and buzzing, percussion-driven mutations of leftfield bass music (Slete Catorce).
Review: American ambient composer Deru returns on Los Angeles imprint Friend Of Friends to present one of his most personal works yet. His new project, Torn In Two, zooms out and deals with human existence as a whole. It finds feelings of frustration, dissociation and anger, but from a high vantage that affords perspective and allows the project to include acceptance, beauty and tranquility. Described as a multimedia project, Torn In Two includes a series of accompanying greyscale films: for the haunting title track and the evocative "Refuge" that magnify the project's themes, with effigies that absorb and reflect the human condition.
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