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.
Review: Indian Wells is Calabrian producer Pietro Iannuzzi, who presents his third album via Los Angeles based Friends Of Friends. Across a range of artfully composed and emotive tracks, the album, entitled Where The World Ends, channels feelings of geographical, social and political isolation formed from borders both ageless and imposed. Choirs of wordless vocals provide a universal element of communication throughout; breaking down barriers of language, creating connections and crossing borders. Lead single "Cascades" is spiritual and evocative deep house on the techier tip, which will appeal to like minded sounds on esteemed imprints like Crosstown Rebels or All Day I Dream. The second single is the title track, and shows a moodier side to Iannuzzi which could get airtime in Berlin's top clubs: calling to mind the trendy sounds of local labels like Stil Vor Talent or Kindisch. Mixed at Sudestudio near Lecce, (Puglia) by local songstress Matilde Davoli.
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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