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: Slowly building a devoted following with his unique take on electronic music, Boston's M.O.O.N.'s debut full length traverses a wide range of emotive synthesizer music by forgoing the usual dance music formulas for freer arrangements and lush instrumentation. While the rhythms are rooted in variants of house, boogie, and synth-pop, the album never tips it's hand stylistically in any particular direction. This results in a playful balance of retro sounds and futuristic ideas highlighting a deft melodic sensibility. Highlights include the deep sax driven drifter "Time", the ethereal punk funk of "Jon F" or the Kompakt style techno-pop of "Alicia".
Review: When Shlohmo first released Bad Vibes on Friends Of Friends, back in 2011, the album and the sounds contained within it felt fresh and provocative. The style ran in parallel with the emergence of post-dubstep, and worked well alongside the works of producers like James Blake, but it was very much its own thing, an experimental sort of nu-jazz that is still sounding game-changing today. This reissue is a fifth anniversary edition, and it's as vast and majestic as we remember it; with twenty-three tracks to lose yourself in, Shlohmo provides a wonderfully curated palette of moods and artistic directions, from lo-fi broken beat, through to glitchy, instrumental hip-hop, and plenty of explorative ambient. It's a mood album, one that must be heard in its entirety, and surely up there with the likes of Caribou's Swim or Flying Lotus' Cosmogramma. Excellent.
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