Ghostly International Electronic & Dance 52 Items

Die limitierte Auflage kommt als "rauchig schwarzes" Vinyl mit Download-Karte, die digitale Bonustracks enthält. Nach Ausflügen in Deep House, Acid und Techno, die ihn laut Resident Advisor zu "einem der fesselndsten Künstler Berlins" gemacht hatten, brachte Lorenz Brunner 2013 sein Projekt Recondite mit dem Album „Hinterland“ bei Ghostly International unter.

Der Produzent schaute auf die Heimat seiner Kindheit, Niederbayern, und nutzte Field Recordings, um die Musik mit den Emotionen der Jahreszeiten in der Region zu verbinden. „Hinterland“ präsentierte eine besondere Atmosphäre - eisige, unheimliche, melancholische Musik, die intime Melodien mit knackigen Perkussion-Sounds kreuzte -, die zum Markenzeichen von Recondite werden sollte. "Das ist das Album, das irgendwann aus Recondite herauskommen musste", sagte er damals. "Es ist Recondite." Ein Jahrzehnt später ist der Sound immer noch ganz und gar sein eigener.

10 year anniversary edition on orange & red marble vinyl. While his formative years were spent listening to everything from Yes to Photek, Scott Hansen didn't get his hands on an actual guitar or drum machine until he left his native Sacramento for San Francisco in 1995. "Encountering this whole new world at 20 years old was a profound experience," says Hansen, better known by his musical pseudonym Tycho and as the graphic artist Iso50. "At the time, I was just learning the processes of design and music; both felt very similar, and have flowed back and forth for me ever since."As seamless as his two creative outlets have been, nearly a decade passed before the release of Hansen's first proper Tycho LP, Sunrise Projector (later expanded and reissued under the title Past Is Prologue). And while three striking singles have emerged since then, the sum of all those sepia-toned parts is nowhere near the double-exposed soundscapes of Dive. The product of a prolonged break from IS050's design work and blog, it pays tribute to Tycho's prismatic past (the dense, guitar-guided turning points of "Daydream" and "Adrift") but spends most of its time pointing to the project's not-so-distant future.That can mean any number of things, really, from the halcyon hooks and hopeful horizons of "A Walk" to the expansive, wildly expressive tone poetry of the title track, an eight-minute epic that unfolds like a compressed concept album. Or at the very least, a restless vision of prog-rock - one that's been coated in neon colors and filtered through a thick piece of blotter paper. And then there's "Elegy," a spare curtain closer that pairs a vulnerable crescendo with a fitting bridge to future works.And with that, Dive establishes its position as the most diverse musical statement of Hansen's multi-medium career; the point where his skills as a performer finally catch up with his vaporized vision of a world that doesn't belong to any particular time or place."Nostalgia is a common thread in my work," says Hansen, "but this album wasn't driven by that idea. I see these songs as artifacts from a future which might have more in common with our past than our present."

For nearly a decade, Tycho has been known as the musical alias of Scott Hansen, but with the release of Awake - his second LP for Ghostly International - the solo project has evolved into a three-piece band. Relating closer to post-rock than ambient soundscapes, the record is situated in the present, sounding more like Hansen than drawing from his in?uences. "This is, in many ways, the first true Tycho record." Following 2011's "Dive" LP, the San Francisco-based designer toured extensively, and with a full band on stage, his sound coalesced into a percussive, organic whole. Zac Brown (guitars, bass) rejoined Scott on the road for this tour, but it was the particular addition of Rory O'Connor's live drumming that ultimately sent Hansen back to the studio with a more precise vision. "After the tour, I decided that I wanted to capture the more energetic, driven sound of the live show on the next album," Hansen recalls. Bringing musicians into Tycho's creative process was a step towards expanding his own songwriting and advancing the project beyond its current sound. In a cabin near Tahoe last winter, Zac and Scott began ?eshing out the structure of the new record, but it wasn't until they set up shop in the hills of Santa Cruz with Rory that it all fell into place. "It crystallized the vision of how the drums would come to the forefront on this record," says Hansen. The sound was much more stripped-down and concise with more organic instruments in the fold. Songs like "Montana" and "Awake" are a departure from Tycho's previous material - unique to the group e!ort poured into the songs on the new record - while "See" and "Dye" echo ideas from previous works, bridging a middle ground between the old and new. Working with Count Eldridge, who also engineered Dive, the team could ?xate on the pulses that Tycho might previously layer under synthesizers and exhume them with distinct bass and guitar patterns. Also known for his design work as Iso50, Hansen's visual and sonic e!orts have dovetailed throughout the course of his career. "This is the ?rst time in my life I've dropped everything to focus on one artistic pursuit," notes Hansen. Previous Tycho releases came to fruition when an amalgam of songs were nearing completion, but "Awake" is where music becomes the focus and true expression becomes the result.

10th Anniversary Edition on black & orange swirl vinyl! A decade ago, the static signal of "Terminal" booting-up sounded and Galactic Melt launched into the atmosphere for the first time; Seth Haley's Com Truise project arrived in full. A graphic designer based in New Jersey at the time, Haley found a sound on his synthesizers that sparked an immediate nostalgia response, tapping into classic sci-fi and proto-electro in a way that felt early '80s in scope, but also remarkably weird - stutter-step proggy and intoxicatingly psychedelic. Unknowingly he had stepped into a genre prism; suppose we know it now as synth-wave though the tag never landed squarely. To Haley, this was a space to explore and a story to tell, which he'd do across a saga of releases that would resonate with a legion of fans and send the producer touring the world in perpetual orbit. His full-length debut on Ghostly International, Galactic Melt delivered on the promise of Haley's Cyanide Sisters EP as well as high-profile remixes for Twin Shadow, Neon Indian, and Daft Punk. Bold, imaginative, and unapologetically cosmic, the set occupies a beloved coordinate in the Com Truise catalog, considered the gateway for many. To celebrate its 10th anniversary, Haley and Ghostly have repressed the long-sold out 2xLP and added five unreleased tracks to the expanded digital edition, giving this classic its due treatment as it passes the milestone. From the keyed-up, skyscraping machine love of "vhs Sex" and "Cathode Girls" to pulsing cuts like "Air Cal" and "Ether Drift," the music on Galactic Melt is mathy, forlorn, funky, and mighty in technical ambition. That they're all noticeably cinematic is, of course, by design. Haley envisioned Galactic Melt as a "sort of film score...from the mind," chronicling the life and death of Com Truise, the world's first synthetic/robotic astronaut, from his creation and time on earth to his subsequent mission to a newly discovered galaxy called Wave 1 (released in 2014).

In the afterglow of her acclaimed 2020 album Silver Ladders, Los Angeles-based harpist Mary Lattimore returns with a culminating counterpart release, Collected Pieces: 2015- 2020. The limited-edition LP features new and previously unreleased material, Bandcamp-only singles, and other obscurities alongside standouts from her 2017 tape Collected Pieces. Beyond the vinyl compendium, an expanded tracklist on the cassette/digital version brings more of Lattimore's archives together for the first time. Lattimore has described the process of arranging these releases as akin to "opening a box filled with memories," and here that box continues to populate, accessible for both the artist and fans. Evocative material separated by years, framed as a portrait of an instrumental storyteller who rarely pauses, recording and often sharing music as soon as it strikes her. Seemingly in constant forward motion for the last five years since her Ghostly debut, Lattimore glances back for a breath, inviting new chances to live in these fleeting moments and emotions; all the beauty, sorrow, sunshine, and darkness housed within. A trove of pieces are collected here, most recorded in the moment, just Lattimore and her Lyon and Healy Concert Grand Harp, contact mics, and pedals. Like her most affecting work, these songs showcase Lattimore's gifts as an observer, able to shape her craft around emotional frequencies and scenes. Her power as a musician is rooted in how she sees the world: in vivid detail, profoundly empathic, with deep gratitude for nature and nuance.

On vinyl for the first time.

Wendelbo's whispery vocals are sung in both French & English, calling to mind Jane Birkin & Francoise Hardy. The alluring, tropical warmth of Wendelbo's vocals is juxtaposed against the duo's signature icy cold, ultra-modern synth sounds.

Beryl Colored Vinyl The catalog of American composer Keith Kenniff spans over a dozen releases as Helios and nearly as many as Goldmund since 2004. Kenniff's music deals with subtlety, and the variance between these projects loosely follows a few signifiers; Goldmund favors post-classical piano, Mint Julep, a project with his partner Hollie, is shoegaze pop, while the linesaround his Helios project are intentionally hazier. Within the alias, Kenniff glides between minimal ambient electronics and more robust instrumentation, all run through his mini-cassette recorder for a distinct wobble.2018's Veriditas, his first Helios LP on Ghostly International, found Kenniff shaping verdant landscapes of harmonic sound, focusing on texture over structure. He followed it up in 2020 with Domicile, an even quieter synth-toned ode to the indoors. Now he returns to the electro-acousticmovement that marked much of his earlier output; the music of Espera is lush, livelier, and perhaps the most singular in his run. Titles are telling in Kenniff's work, and Espera, a Spanish word meaning "wait," speaks to the producer's patient and cinematic craft. The record balances engagementand contemplation with a billowing accessible lightness, and reveals Helios at a compelling intersection, composing songs as vivid and three-dimensional as they are characteristically modernist and understated."Patience is something I aspire to in my life and profession," says Kenniff, who recorded Esperaat night, his preferred mode, when life is uncluttered and unrushed. While the Helios project has fit neatly into the beatless category in recent years, Kenniff felt a natural pull to pivot for thesesessions, embracing downtempo percussion, both acoustic and electronically rendered. Arrangements also swelled with layers of guitar and piano,made familiar with his usual tape treatment giving the material a warmer, closer feel, homemade yet expansive, vibrant yet peaceful. "The texturalaesthetic of the instruments was as important as the...

Canadian producer Dylan Khotin-Foote has kept his Khotin alias going for the better part of a decade; the impressionistic electronic project shifts with the movements in his life. Sometimes it leads, like when the club-friendly grooves of 2014's Hello World immersed him in the heart of Vancouver's underground dance scene, and sometimes it follows, like 2018's Beautiful You, a downtempo salve for DJ fatigue His melodic sensibility and playful ear for atmosphere remain the rippling core of the project's fingerprint; whether beat-driven or ambient, a foggy smear or a dusted and pristine print, a Khotin track has a distinct and instantly recognizable swirl. During and after the 2020 release of Finds You Well, his second LP on Ghostly International, Khotin-Foote settled back into a slower vibe in his hometown of Ed- monton. Even before the pandemic, his pivots to softer production, and away from DJing, left him with fewer opportunities in Vancouver and club bookings overall, and as a self-identifying introvert, he was fine with that. But the change of pace did open space for Khotin-Foote to grapple with concepts of adulthood and career. At his lowest, he almost walked off this musical path altogether; instead, he doubled down on the craft _ the tone, pacing, and dynamism of new material _ arriving at a definitive full-length. With Release Spirit, Khotin releases himself from the pressure of expectation, fusing and refining everything we know about his music. The warmth and familiarity of Khotin's dreamy, dulcet style meet new ideas and frameworks, a natural progression, a modest revelation; Khotin confirms it is okay to move slowly and he's never sounded better doing it. The album title borrows from the "release spirit" mechanic in the video game World of Warcraft. When players die, they are prompted to release their spirit and return as ghosts to find their corpses and come back to life. Khotin sees it as a worthy metaphor for the impending change his return home presented and the resulting process of purging artistic expectations to find his creative self again. On this go- around, he is freer, more playful, and more intentional within his palette of warped synth, breakbeats, and piano sounds _ including the classic Casio Sk-1 presets he's used since the start _ mingling with wistful samples, field recordings, and other abstract snippets. For the first time, he enlisted Nik Kozub to do the mix and assist with sequencing. Khotin-Foote has long worked with the Edmonton-based musician and engineer in the mastering phase, as well as their days co-running the label Normals Welcome, and this time was able to involve his ears earlier given their newfound proximity. "I think it's my best sounding record to date." We begin on "HV Road" or Happy Valley Road, where Khotin-Foote spent time during a family vacation in British Columbia's Okanagan Lake. His plans to record crickets at night are quickly foiled by his younger siblings; the cute exchange orients the listener to a core memory of sorts, setting the tone of universally understood warmth and wonder that has defined some of Khotin's most transportive tracks. Hazy percussion takes hold, and we are swept further into the wisp of "Lovely," a grooving, melodic standout built on the interplay between the beat and human voice-like hums. Khotin knows this zone well; equally suited for a reverie or a club warm-up. The bubbling atmosphere and absurdity of "3 pz" offer a cosmic/comic interlude and also speak to reflections on his family's move to Canada two generations ago, and the audio tutorials they used to learn English. "I can only imagine my grandpar- ents repeating some of the bizarre phrases." "Fountain, Growth" finds Khotin in collaboration with Montreal's Tess Roby (Dawn to Dawn) for the project's first-ever vocal track. Roby's soft cadence echoes atop spiraling air pockets of rhythmic production, lending a breezy, almost shoegaze pop feel. Throughout the single and the album, wind gusts between the compositional layers, akin to the roaming spirits of its namesake, curving around the birdsong of "Life Mask" and seamlessly reaching "Unlimited <3." The latter bumps in slow motion; disembodied whirrs from his Casio collide with 808 drums and sub-bass for a vibe that teeters on trap and instrumental hip-hop. Release Spirit rests in a dream sequence. Oscillating synth lines dance around the heartbeat of "Techno Creep," a hyperactive REM state before the digitized ambient sprawl of "My Same Size." In the final pass, Khotin imagines transcontinental travel from the glow of his screen. He recorded "Sound Gathering Trip" to soundtrack a genre of YouTube videos he's taken to that follows train routes through Europe and Japan. The scene is serene and moving; piano keys warble as static-filled sound design shimmers off the rails, from cityscapes to the countryside, an introspective ride through a world beyond his bedroom. It doubles as an apt parting image for Khotin's project as a whole: dreaming big but happiest when riffing on the details, shaping environments from the inside out. Over the last decade, he has stretched from his core in Edmonton, leaving a trace in Vancouver and beyond; but when all signs point home, he loops back to see it all from a different vantage, revitalized, refined, and free.

Canadian producer Dylan Khotin-Foote has kept his Khotin alias going for the better part of a decade; the impressionistic electronic project shifts with the movements in his life. Sometimes it leads, like when the club-friendly grooves of 2014's Hello World immersed him in the heart of Vancouver's underground dance scene, and sometimes it follows, like 2018's Beautiful You, a downtempo salve for DJ fatigue His melodic sensibility and playful ear for atmosphere remain the rippling core of the project's fingerprint; whether beat-driven or ambient, a foggy smear or a dusted and pristine print, a Khotin track has a distinct and instantly recognizable swirl. During and after the 2020 release of Finds You Well, his second LP on Ghostly International, Khotin-Foote settled back into a slower vibe in his hometown of Ed- monton. Even before the pandemic, his pivots to softer production, and away from DJing, left him with fewer opportunities in Vancouver and club bookings overall, and as a self-identifying introvert, he was fine with that. But the change of pace did open space for Khotin-Foote to grapple with concepts of adulthood and career. At his lowest, he almost walked off this musical path altogether; instead, he doubled down on the craft _ the tone, pacing, and dynamism of new material _ arriving at a definitive full-length. With Release Spirit, Khotin releases himself from the pressure of expectation, fusing and refining everything we know about his music. The warmth and familiarity of Khotin's dreamy, dulcet style meet new ideas and frameworks, a natural progression, a modest revelation; Khotin confirms it is okay to move slowly and he's never sounded better doing it. The album title borrows from the "release spirit" mechanic in the video game World of Warcraft. When players die, they are prompted to release their spirit and return as ghosts to find their corpses and come back to life. Khotin sees it as a worthy metaphor for the impending change his return home presented and the resulting process of purging artistic expectations to find his creative self again. On this go- around, he is freer, more playful, and more intentional within his palette of warped synth, breakbeats, and piano sounds _ including the classic Casio Sk-1 presets he's used since the start _ mingling with wistful samples, field recordings, and other abstract snippets. For the first time, he enlisted Nik Kozub to do the mix and assist with sequencing. Khotin-Foote has long worked with the Edmonton-based musician and engineer in the mastering phase, as well as their days co-running the label Normals Welcome, and this time was able to involve his ears earlier given their newfound proximity. "I think it's my best sounding record to date." We begin on "HV Road" or Happy Valley Road, where Khotin-Foote spent time during a family vacation in British Columbia's Okanagan Lake. His plans to record crickets at night are quickly foiled by his younger siblings; the cute exchange orients the listener to a core memory of sorts, setting the tone of universally understood warmth and wonder that has defined some of Khotin's most transportive tracks. Hazy percussion takes hold, and we are swept further into the wisp of "Lovely," a grooving, melodic standout built on the interplay between the beat and human voice-like hums. Khotin knows this zone well; equally suited for a reverie or a club warm-up. The bubbling atmosphere and absurdity of "3 pz" offer a cosmic/comic interlude and also speak to reflections on his family's move to Canada two generations ago, and the audio tutorials they used to learn English. "I can only imagine my grandpar- ents repeating some of the bizarre phrases." "Fountain, Growth" finds Khotin in collaboration with Montreal's Tess Roby (Dawn to Dawn) for the project's first-ever vocal track. Roby's soft cadence echoes atop spiraling air pockets of rhythmic production, lending a breezy, almost shoegaze pop feel. Throughout the single and the album, wind gusts between the compositional layers, akin to the roaming spirits of its namesake, curving around the birdsong of "Life Mask" and seamlessly reaching "Unlimited <3." The latter bumps in slow motion; disembodied whirrs from his Casio collide with 808 drums and sub-bass for a vibe that teeters on trap and instrumental hip-hop. Release Spirit rests in a dream sequence. Oscillating synth lines dance around the heartbeat of "Techno Creep," a hyperactive REM state before the digitized ambient sprawl of "My Same Size." In the final pass, Khotin imagines transcontinental travel from the glow of his screen. He recorded "Sound Gathering Trip" to soundtrack a genre of YouTube videos he's taken to that follows train routes through Europe and Japan. The scene is serene and moving; piano keys warble as static-filled sound design shimmers off the rails, from cityscapes to the countryside, an introspective ride through a world beyond his bedroom. It doubles as an apt parting image for Khotin's project as a whole: dreaming big but happiest when riffing on the details, shaping environments from the inside out. Over the last decade, he has stretched from his core in Edmonton, leaving a trace in Vancouver and beyond; but when all signs point home, he loops back to see it all from a different vantage, revitalized, refined, and free.

"Three years on from Lucky Shiner and following his DJ-Kicks set, the new EP from Gold Panda finds him refining his approach and exploring familiar themes, mixing bell-like textures, slow-mo house, and foggy drone." - PITCHFORK.comGold Panda is the moniker of English electronic record producer and songwriter Derwin Schlecker. He released several small-issue 7" records and singles in 2009, and in 2010 he signed with Ghostly International to release his debut full-length Lucky Shiner.In 2013, Gold Panda started the year releasing the EP Trust. His second album, Half of Where You Live, followed six months later.

"Art is awe, art is mystery expressed," writes Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. "Art is somatic, even if it is experienced cerebrally. It is felt." The central mysteries of Smith's ninth studio album, Let's Turn it Into Sound, have to do with perception, expression, and communication: How can we communicate when spoken language is inadequate? How do we understand what it is we're feeling? How do we translate our experience of the world into something that someone else can understand? For Smith, a self-described "feeler," the answers are inspired by compound words in non-English languages, translation, sculptural fashion, dance, butoh, wushu shaolin, and other forms of sensory and somatic experience. Just like fashion uses lines, shapes, colors, textures, and silhouettes to communicate on a sensual level separate from the conscious mind, Let's Turn it Into Sound strives to use sound to communicate what words alone cannot. "The album is a puzzle," Smith says. "[It] is a symbol of receiving a compound of a ton of feelings from going out into a situation, and the song titles are instructions to breaking apart the feelings and understanding them." The energized "Is it Me or is it You" comes from traversing the gaps between how you see yourself and how another might see you, through a filter of their own projections. The hushed sense of revelation that brackets "There is Something" refers to the feeling of walking into a room and being subconsciously aware of the dynamic present. All the while, Smith interprets these feelings through sound. This auditory interpretation process, driven by earnest curiosity, led Smith to record some thoughts and questions that popped up along the journey in Somatic Hearing_a booklet which accompanies the album. Over three frenzied months, recording alone in her home studio, Smith allowed herself to pursue new experiments to accompany her usual toolkit of modular, analogue, and rare synthesizers (including her signature Buchla), orchestral sounds, and the voice. She created a new vocal processing technique, and gave herself permission to pursue a pacing that felt intuitive, rather one that followed typical song structures. She walked around in the windiest season with a subwoofer backpack and an umbrella, listening to the low end of the album amidst 60mph gusts. She listened to herself, and, in doing so, to an inner community which suddenly opened to her. Underlying the album is a dynamic relationship between what Smith describes as six distinct voices, each a multifaceted storyteller. By acknowledging these characters, she was acknowledging her whole being: the woven plurality of self, the complex process of noticing and resolving inner conflicts, and the joy of finding harmony in flux. "I started to feel so embodied by all of these characters. This is all the felt, unsaid stuff [my inner community] wants to communicate but it doesn't have the English language as its form of communication, and so [this album was a form of] giving space to let it talk and not judge it and just let it play." By not adhering to expected song structures, each song feels even more like a conversation, with each character getting to express themselves in full.

"Art is awe, art is mystery expressed," writes Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. "Art is somatic, even if it is experienced cerebrally. It is felt." The central mysteries of Smith's ninth studio album, Let's Turn it Into Sound, have to do with perception, expression, and communication: How can we communicate when spoken language is inadequate? How do we understand what it is we're feeling? How do we translate our experience of the world into something that someone else can understand? For Smith, a self-described "feeler," the answers are inspired by compound words in non-English languages, translation, sculptural fashion, dance, butoh, wushu shaolin, and other forms of sensory and somatic experience. Just like fashion uses lines, shapes, colors, textures, and silhouettes to communicate on a sensual level separate from the conscious mind, Let's Turn it Into Sound strives to use sound to communicate what words alone cannot. "The album is a puzzle," Smith says. "[It] is a symbol of receiving a compound of a ton of feelings from going out into a situation, and the song titles are instructions to breaking apart the feelings and understanding them." The energized "Is it Me or is it You" comes from traversing the gaps between how you see yourself and how another might see you, through a filter of their own projections. The hushed sense of revelation that brackets "There is Something" refers to the feeling of walking into a room and being subconsciously aware of the dynamic present. All the while, Smith interprets these feelings through sound. This auditory interpretation process, driven by earnest curiosity, led Smith to record some thoughts and questions that popped up along the journey in Somatic Hearing_a booklet which accompanies the album. Over three frenzied months, recording alone in her home studio, Smith allowed herself to pursue new experiments to accompany her usual toolkit of modular, analogue, and rare synthesizers (including her signature Buchla), orchestral sounds, and the voice. She created a new vocal processing technique, and gave herself permission to pursue a pacing that felt intuitive, rather one that followed typical song structures. She walked around in the windiest season with a subwoofer backpack and an umbrella, listening to the low end of the album amidst 60mph gusts. She listened to herself, and, in doing so, to an inner community which suddenly opened to her. Underlying the album is a dynamic relationship between what Smith describes as six distinct voices, each a multifaceted storyteller. By acknowledging these characters, she was acknowledging her whole being: the woven plurality of self, the complex process of noticing and resolving inner conflicts, and the joy of finding harmony in flux. "I started to feel so embodied by all of these characters. This is all the felt, unsaid stuff [my inner community] wants to communicate but it doesn't have the English language as its form of communication, and so [this album was a form of] giving space to let it talk and not judge it and just let it play." By not adhering to expected song structures, each song feels even more like a conversation, with each character getting to express themselves in full.

"His music filled me with the urge to connect with the world," Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith says of Emile Mosseri. She first heard his work while watching the 2019 film The Last Black Man In San Francisco; just minutes in, she paused it to look up who did the score and wrote to him immediately. "I love Emile's ability to create melodies that feel magically scenic and familiar like they are reminding you of the innocence of loving life." Those talents saw recognition in 2020 with an Oscar nomination for Mosseri's original score to the film Minari. He was already a fan of Smith's and became increasingly intrigued by her impressionistic process as they started to talk. "The music feels so spiritual and alive and made from the earth," Mosseri says. "I think of her as the great conductor, summoning musical poetry from her orchestra of machines." I Could Be Your Dog / I Could Be Your Moon, their two-part collaborative album, introduces an uncanny fusion of their sonics. Constructed using synthesizer, piano, electronics, and voice, this soft-focus dream world is lush, evocative, and fleeting. It finds two composers tuning their respective styles inward as an ode to mutual inspiration, a celebration of the human spirit and its will to surrender to the currents of life. As a full album set, I Could Be Your Dog / I Could Be Your Moon moves fluidly from track to track, panning through textural vignettes. Two roughly 17-minute halves, the set evokes the bittersweet sense of something too bright or rare to last, a short-lived glimpse into a golden hour. There is a dreamy, elemental intention to this music, which Smith and Mosseri say came naturally, as they both embraced intuitive interplay throughout their creative back-and-forth. The stylistic threads of each composer are recognizable yet become more ambiguous as the album progresses, sewn into a singular vision.

Loraine James' new ambient-minded alias, Whatever The Weather, follows her 2021 solo LP Reflection (Hyperdub). In contrast to her club music sensibilities, this mode embraces keyboard improvisations and vocal experimentation, foregoing percussive structure in favor of shaping atmosphere and tone. From this divergent headspace emerged new coordinates and climates, a new outlet: Whatever The Weather. A longtime fan of ambient-adjacent Ghostly International artists such as Telefon Tel Aviv (who she'd ask to master the album), HTRK (whose singer Jonnine Standish features on Nothing), and Lusine (whom she remixed at the start of 2021), James saw the label as the ideal home for this eponymous album of airy, transportive tracks as they began to formulate. The titling on Whatever The Weather works in degrees; simple parameters allowing James to focus on the nuances as a mood-builder. Her suspended universe fluctuates; freezing, thawing, swaying and blooming from track to track. James describes her jam-based approach for the sessions as "free-flowing, stopping when I felt like I was done," allowing her subconscious to lead. The improvisations have an intrinsic fluidity to them, akin to sudden weather events passing over a single environment - the location feels fixed while the conditions vary. The album opens at "25°C," a sunshower of soft hums and keys. As the longest piece, it serves to establish stability, the inflection point where any move above or below this temperate breeze breaks the bliss. Given James' proclivity for organized chaos in her production, this scene is fleeting, naturally. From that utopia, we plummet to the most melancholic read on the meter, "0°C," its isolated synth line traversing a hailstorm of steely beats and static. Next, the dial jumps for the propulsive standout "17°C." Like a timelapse of springtime in the city, the single accelerates across a frenzy of frames; car horns, screeching brakes, and crosswalk chatter fill the pauses between rapid jolts of multi-shaped percussion. For portions of the work, James leans neo-classical, rendering pensive vignettes of cascading piano keys and warm delay. "2°C (Intermittent Rain)" ends the A-Side on a short and stormy loop; a resulting sense of reset permeates the B-Side's opener, "10°C." The producer mingles intuitively on echoed organ, locking into and abandoning atypical rhythms that suggest her jazz-oriented interests. "4°C" and "30°C" display the range of James' vocal experiments. The former chops and pitches her voice to a rhythmic, otherworldly effect, the latter reveals James at her most straightforward (she cites Deftones' Chino Moreno and American Football's Mike Kinsella as inspirations), singing tenderly and unobstructed for nearly the duration before beats collide in the climax. Whatever The Weather closes at "36°C," while a sweltering heat by any standards the track eases along comfortably on a chorus of synth waves, acting as an apt bookend for this evocative, sky-tracing collection that started in a similar state. Cyclical, seasonal, and unpredictable, true to its namesake.

After a run of critically-acclaimed singles and EPs, British producer Michael Greene, aka Fort Romeau, returns to the full-length format with Beings of Light, the long-awaited follow-up to 2015's Insides and his second LP on Ghostly International. While a prolific DJ who orients many of his productions for the dancefloor, Greene still sees the album as the ultimate statement of intent, "a space to stretch out, to speak in full paragraphs rather than stunted sentences." He has explored several stylistic fragments in recent years (including the summer 2018 anthem "Pablo," hailed a Best New Track by Pitchfork), but when faced with the extended pause to the dance community in 2020, Greene felt compelled to focus on a larger body of work. Embracing a back-to-basics mentality, he amassed over a dozen hours of sounds, asking himself throughout the sessions: "Does the music move you? Is it honest?" He came out the other end with Beings of Light, an expressive collection traversing rainy day ambient, moonlit disco, and dream-like techno in pursuit of the power found within our subconscious. Album opener "Untitled IV" ushers in a sprinting tempo in its exploration of the human voice, a recurring device in the Fort Romeau project. Greene uses it as a compositional layer, disembodied with its context often opaque or reduced to a single phrase. Here the voice is scattered in percussive twitches, colliding with a kick drum to induce a near state of hypnosis as horns sound off in the distance. Propulsive standout "Spotlights'' is Greene's ode to the romanticised New York City that lives in our hearts, nocturnal and carefree. A vocal snippet repeats the title with a breezy poise, reminiscent of classic house cuts. "Ramona'' honors the beloved Robert Johnson club in Offenbach, Germany. Hazy, spacious, and sustained, Greene designed the beat with their system in mind, "also with a strong nod to the more modern lineage of exceptional minimal house music from Frankfurt," he says. Two ambient pieces surround the track, "(In The) Rain" sets the scene and "Porta Coeli" (a Latin phrase which loosely translates to "heaven's gate") soundtracks the comedown. The album's closer, the title track, is an arc constructed with atmospheric textures, euphoric swings of percussion, and a well-placed piano refrain, "Beings of Light" is adaptive; one could imagine it reverberating from a club, scoring the emotional apex of a film, or radiating through the realm of dreams.

In the afterglow of her acclaimed 2020 album Silver Ladders, Los Angeles-based harpist Mary Lattimore returns with a culminating counterpart release, Collected Pieces: 2015- 2020. The limited-edition LP features new and previously unreleased material, Bandcamp-only singles, and other obscurities alongside standouts from her 2017 tape Collected Pieces. Beyond the vinyl compendium, an expanded tracklist on the cassette/digital version brings more of Lattimore's archives together for the first time. Lattimore has described the process of arranging these releases as akin to "opening a box filled with memories," and here that box continues to populate, accessible for both the artist and fans. Evocative material separated by years, framed as a portrait of an instrumental storyteller who rarely pauses, recording and often sharing music as soon as it strikes her. Seemingly in constant forward motion for the last five years since her Ghostly debut, Lattimore glances back for a breath, inviting new chances to live in these fleeting moments and emotions; all the beauty, sorrow, sunshine, and darkness housed within. A trove of pieces are collected here, most recorded in the moment, just Lattimore and her Lyon and Healy Concert Grand Harp, contact mics, and pedals. Like her most affecting work, these songs showcase Lattimore's gifts as an observer, able to shape her craft around emotional frequencies and scenes. Her power as a musician is rooted in how she sees the world: in vivid detail, profoundly empathic, with deep gratitude for nature and nuance.

Debut full length from Portland-based DIY multi-instrumentalist; for Fans of King Krule, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Thundercat, Shigeto, Mild High Club, Crumb. Portland, Oregon-based musician Graham Jonson started early: playing piano as a toddler, finding the music of J Dilla in fifth grade, and self-releasing singles by age 16. First appearing under the name quickly, quickly in 2017, his project's profile has since grown fervently with fans in the beats-oriented corners of SoundCloud, YouTube, and Reddit. Some of his early tracks tally north of 10 million plays on Spotify. The figure isn't meant to flex as much as it is to point out that Jonson's work has resonated without the traditional industry levers; he is a wunderkind DIY internet success story, but, by his own assessment at the present age of 20, he's only now getting serious. With The Long and Short of It, his Ghostly International debut, Jonson reinvents his project as a full-fledged songwriter, vocalist, and arranger, playing nearly everything from drums to keys and guitar. The resulting sound straddles jazz, hip hop, R&B, and psych-pop while suggesting a wholly genre-less path forward. Recorded during and after a short-lived move to Los Angeles, songs find Jonson cool and comfortable, navigating the planes between anxiety and apathy, distance and desire with lyrical vulnerability and introspection. A student of the Stones Throw catalog (his favorite is Madlib's Quasimoto), Jonson remains rhythm-driven at heart, trusting his instincts in this new palette of organic instrumentation and verse-chorus structure. Tracks glide and bump with tasteful care to tempo as his scene-building and storytelling knack comes into focus. Jonson's past material often suited passive listenership, the kind of bedroom-produced beat music that offers secondary utility and function as a companion to primary activities. The Long and Short of It showcases an evolutionary step into a style that uses chops cultivated in that niche that demand a more active listenership. That attention is rewarded with earworms, dazzling production flare, and earnest, genre-spanning songwriting. Opener "Phases" launches on the radical wisdom of the album's sole vocal feature, courtesy of renowned poet and activist, Sharrif Simmons, who contributes a psychedelic poem spanning cosmic existentialism _ something he wrote off the cuff during a session. As the fiery spoken word unfolds, a frenzy of drum grooves from Micah Hummel and strings from Elliot Cleverdon rise higher into the mix, all setting the stage for Jonson's debut at the mic and keys. The back half of "Phases" shifts into a hypnotic instrumental, the drums interlocking on guitar lines, pausing for a spacious break before reassembling twice as potent, riding into a blissful, cathartic saxophone solo by Haily Naiswanger. "Shee" was written on his girlfriend's guitar and every line glows with uncomplicated adoration. He is captivated in this daydream, which drifts off into a haze of strums and hums. We wake to the looping drums of "Leave It." Above the pattern, layering piano and guitar, Jonson pokes holes in himself _ his "cognitive dissonance," being "too jaded" to see what's right in front of him - the notions blurring back into that haze on an outro of sublime ambient psych-jazz. Jonson returns to the piano for "I Am Close To The River," the place he goes to break a creative rut, as he was the morning this bittersweet melody entered his mind. He says the song is loosely based on a psychonautic experience he had along the Willamette River. Once home, he put the song to paper, over time arranging a bucolic mix of shimmering chimes, saturated percussion, and orchestral strings from Elliot Cleverdon. A highlight on the record's b-side, "Everything is Different (To Me)" features all the traits of the new quickly, quickly in one ambitious suite: a catchy guitar loop, a classic hip-hop drum break, a swell of strings, and sly chord progression changes, all in clever contrast to Jonson's lyrics detailing bouts with lethargy. The album ends on a series of questions in the poignant "Wy," a delightful resignation. Jonson, lonely in LA, spins the hypochondriac wheel and checks off concerns that seem to plague internet dwellers; his neck hurts, his hands are shaky, his stomach feels off. He dismisses his need to self-diagnose and opts to lean into the moment through music. A billowing outro builds on airy synths, his contemplative guitar strums, and a soothing water droplet sound. The comedown is "Otto's Dance," a brief instrumental reverie nodding to one of his favorite Brazilian albums, Milton Nascimento and Lô Borges' Clube Da Esquina. That's The Long and Short of It, a summary of transition, self-validation, and a great leap forward in a young artist's life.

Debut full length from Portland-based DIY multi-instrumentalist; for Fans of King Krule, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Thundercat, Shigeto, Mild High Club, Crumb. Portland, Oregon-based musician Graham Jonson started early: playing piano as a toddler, finding the music of J Dilla in fifth grade, and self-releasing singles by age 16. First appearing under the name quickly, quickly in 2017, his project's profile has since grown fervently with fans in the beats-oriented corners of SoundCloud, YouTube, and Reddit. Some of his early tracks tally north of 10 million plays on Spotify. The figure isn't meant to flex as much as it is to point out that Jonson's work has resonated without the traditional industry levers; he is a wunderkind DIY internet success story, but, by his own assessment at the present age of 20, he's only now getting serious. With The Long and Short of It, his Ghostly International debut, Jonson reinvents his project as a full-fledged songwriter, vocalist, and arranger, playing nearly everything from drums to keys and guitar. The resulting sound straddles jazz, hip hop, R&B, and psych-pop while suggesting a wholly genre-less path forward. Recorded during and after a short-lived move to Los Angeles, songs find Jonson cool and comfortable, navigating the planes between anxiety and apathy, distance and desire with lyrical vulnerability and introspection. A student of the Stones Throw catalog (his favorite is Madlib's Quasimoto), Jonson remains rhythm-driven at heart, trusting his instincts in this new palette of organic instrumentation and verse-chorus structure. Tracks glide and bump with tasteful care to tempo as his scene-building and storytelling knack comes into focus. Jonson's past material often suited passive listenership, the kind of bedroom-produced beat music that offers secondary utility and function as a companion to primary activities. The Long and Short of It showcases an evolutionary step into a style that uses chops cultivated in that niche that demand a more active listenership. That attention is rewarded with earworms, dazzling production flare, and earnest, genre-spanning songwriting. Opener "Phases" launches on the radical wisdom of the album's sole vocal feature, courtesy of renowned poet and activist, Sharrif Simmons, who contributes a psychedelic poem spanning cosmic existentialism _ something he wrote off the cuff during a session. As the fiery spoken word unfolds, a frenzy of drum grooves from Micah Hummel and strings from Elliot Cleverdon rise higher into the mix, all setting the stage for Jonson's debut at the mic and keys. The back half of "Phases" shifts into a hypnotic instrumental, the drums interlocking on guitar lines, pausing for a spacious break before reassembling twice as potent, riding into a blissful, cathartic saxophone solo by Haily Naiswanger. "Shee" was written on his girlfriend's guitar and every line glows with uncomplicated adoration. He is captivated in this daydream, which drifts off into a haze of strums and hums. We wake to the looping drums of "Leave It." Above the pattern, layering piano and guitar, Jonson pokes holes in himself _ his "cognitive dissonance," being "too jaded" to see what's right in front of him - the notions blurring back into that haze on an outro of sublime ambient psych-jazz. Jonson returns to the piano for "I Am Close To The River," the place he goes to break a creative rut, as he was the morning this bittersweet melody entered his mind. He says the song is loosely based on a psychonautic experience he had along the Willamette River. Once home, he put the song to paper, over time arranging a bucolic mix of shimmering chimes, saturated percussion, and orchestral strings from Elliot Cleverdon. A highlight on the record's b-side, "Everything is Different (To Me)" features all the traits of the new quickly, quickly in one ambitious suite: a catchy guitar loop, a classic hip-hop drum break, a swell of strings, and sly chord progression changes, all in clever contrast to Jonson's lyrics detailing bouts with lethargy. The album ends on a series of questions in the poignant "Wy," a delightful resignation. Jonson, lonely in LA, spins the hypochondriac wheel and checks off concerns that seem to plague internet dwellers; his neck hurts, his hands are shaky, his stomach feels off. He dismisses his need to self-diagnose and opts to lean into the moment through music. A billowing outro builds on airy synths, his contemplative guitar strums, and a soothing water droplet sound. The comedown is "Otto's Dance," a brief instrumental reverie nodding to one of his favorite Brazilian albums, Milton Nascimento and Lô Borges' Clube Da Esquina. That's The Long and Short of It, a summary of transition, self-validation, and a great leap forward in a young artist's life.

This unearthed Matthew Dear album was originally recorded after his acclaimed album Asa Breed (2007). Riyl: Beck, Bill Callahan/Smog, Bibio. Twenty-plus years into his career, producer/vocalist/songwriter/DJ Matthew Dear remains artistically unpredictable in pursuit of his prescient strain of electronically-formed, organically-delivered indie pop. His work traverses myriad musical worlds, belonging to none. But these fluid moves have not been without a few forks in the road, decisive turns, and what-ifs. Most notable is the pivot-point following Dear's acclaimed 2007 avant-pop LP, Asa Breed, in which he broke away from the 4/4 grid of his techno/house debut Leave Luck To Heaven and into something much more wild and idiosyncratic. Traveling between his adopted Detroit and his home state of Texas throughout 2008 and 2009, Dear amassed a set of personal, playful, looping guitar-centric recordings he'd consider for his next album. Given the new momentum of the hybrid electronic pop of Asa Breed which led to an opening slot for Hot Chip and remixes for `00 heroes like Spoon and Postal Service, Dear decided to shelf the material. He moved ahead to work on his watershed 2010 album, Black City, a steely noir set which earned him a Best New Music on Pitchfork and a worldwide tour with a besuited band. This "lost album" had a sound, a spirited country romp in the techno barn, and it had a rough title, a scribble on one of the CD-Rs passed to Ghostly label founder Sam Valenti IV, Preacher's Sigh & Potion. He never fully walked away from it, and merely kept moving down the road, waiting for the audience to catch up. Over a decade later, that time is now. Preacher's Sigh & Potion finds Dear unknowingly at an intersection in his young run, a burgeoning songwriter at his most freewheeling and unaffected. In hindsight, there were hints of Preacher's sound on Asa Breed, but the set still registers endearingly out of step with his eventual direction. This was the first time Dear tapped so directly into his late father's influence as a fingerpicking guitar player in the 1960s and `70s and a gateway to the music of John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, and Emmylou Harris. From the twang and tambourine stomp of album opener "Muscle Beach," to the metronome-like pulse of "Hikers Y" complete with an unmistakable Matthew Dear dryly dismissive mantra, to the gloomy carnival-leaving- town pomp of "Gutters and Beyond," Preacher's Sigh & Potion is filled with the reckless notions of an artist dashing the history of pop and rock, the twang of country, the build and release of techno. Dear is an auteur, and in retrospect, so many of his signatures crop up in these relics from his former self.

This unearthed Matthew Dear album was originally recorded after his acclaimed album Asa Breed (2007). Riyl: Beck, Bill Callahan/Smog, Bibio. Twenty-plus years into his career, producer/vocalist/songwriter/DJ Matthew Dear remains artistically unpredictable in pursuit of his prescient strain of electronically-formed, organically-delivered indie pop. His work traverses myriad musical worlds, belonging to none. But these fluid moves have not been without a few forks in the road, decisive turns, and what-ifs. Most notable is the pivot-point following Dear's acclaimed 2007 avant-pop LP, Asa Breed, in which he broke away from the 4/4 grid of his techno/house debut Leave Luck To Heaven and into something much more wild and idiosyncratic. Traveling between his adopted Detroit and his home state of Texas throughout 2008 and 2009, Dear amassed a set of personal, playful, looping guitar-centric recordings he'd consider for his next album. Given the new momentum of the hybrid electronic pop of Asa Breed which led to an opening slot for Hot Chip and remixes for `00 heroes like Spoon and Postal Service, Dear decided to shelf the material. He moved ahead to work on his watershed 2010 album, Black City, a steely noir set which earned him a Best New Music on Pitchfork and a worldwide tour with a besuited band. This "lost album" had a sound, a spirited country romp in the techno barn, and it had a rough title, a scribble on one of the CD-Rs passed to Ghostly label founder Sam Valenti IV, Preacher's Sigh & Potion. He never fully walked away from it, and merely kept moving down the road, waiting for the audience to catch up. Over a decade later, that time is now. Preacher's Sigh & Potion finds Dear unknowingly at an intersection in his young run, a burgeoning songwriter at his most freewheeling and unaffected. In hindsight, there were hints of Preacher's sound on Asa Breed, but the set still registers endearingly out of step with his eventual direction. This was the first time Dear tapped so directly into his late father's influence as a fingerpicking guitar player in the 1960s and `70s and a gateway to the music of John Prine, Townes Van Zandt, and Emmylou Harris. From the twang and tambourine stomp of album opener "Muscle Beach," to the metronome-like pulse of "Hikers Y" complete with an unmistakable Matthew Dear dryly dismissive mantra, to the gloomy carnival-leaving- town pomp of "Gutters and Beyond," Preacher's Sigh & Potion is filled with the reckless notions of an artist dashing the history of pop and rock, the twang of country, the build and release of techno. Dear is an auteur, and in retrospect, so many of his signatures crop up in these relics from his former self.

"Do you feel what I feel too?" Brijean Murphy floats the question at the start of Feelings, the full-length Ghostly International debut from Brijean, her collaborative project with Doug Stuart. Guided by a lush mix of charismatic keyboard chords, grooving bass lines, and radiant bongo-driven rhythms, the "Day Dreaming" lyric doubles as an invitation and a statement of intention. Brijean want you to move, physically, mentally, dimensionally; this is dance music for the mind, body, and soul. With Feelings, they've manifested a gentle collective space for respite, for self-reflection, for self-care, for uninhibited imagination and new possibilities. The album cultivates a specific vibe, a softness Murphy has come to call "romancing the psyche." Growing up in a family immersed in jazz, Latin and soul music, Murphy would become an accomplished DJ, session and live player in Oakland's diverse music scene and one of indie's most in-demand percussionists (Poolside, Toro Y Moi, U.S. Girls). In 2018, she began recording songs with multi-instrumentalist and producer Doug Stuart, who shares a background in jazz and pop in bands such as Bells Atlas, Meernaa, and Luke Temple. Following their first sessions, which resulted in the mini-album Walkie Talkie (released in 2019 on Native Cat Recordings), the duo continued freeform hangs in Oakland, inviting friends Chaz Bear, Tony Peppers, and Hamir Atwal. "We improvised on different feels for hours," says Murphy. "Nothing quite developed at first but we had seeds. We re-opened the sessions a couple months later, after returning from tours, and spent a month developing the songs in a little 400 square foot cottage." Aforementioned album opener "Day Dreaming" is a dynamic celebration of newness: the excitement in finding deeper understandings of yourself as you get to know someone, something, or somewhere new. "Wifi Beach" drops a pin in pure psych-pop exotica. With Atwal on drums, Stuart on bass, Peppers on keys, and Bear engineering, the group improvised the track's intro sequence based on the vision of a lavish 1970s pool party. Establishing the scene is a mid-frequency drum kit disco shuffle augmented by tight congas and timbale effect, as Murphy sings in spurts: "I want to be / Deep in love / I want to be / Say you love me too / I want to be / Honey." The stanzas cut between "reflective moments of wants and being overwhelmed by feelings of the present," she explains. "A lot of the `love songs' I write are to my psyche, self-reflections on how to encourage tender perspectives and make more time for the sweet stuff." Though there is a loose, dance-oriented motif throughout, the material gives way to somnolent turns. On "Ocean," Brijean's anodyne lyrics, reminiscent of Astrud Gilberto's airy croon, float atop a brushed drum pattern, sparkling rhodes lines, and pittering and softly funky woodblock bops. The opening line sets up the rest, "In this gentle space we lay" _ among the album's propensity for movement, tracks like "Ocean" stand out by leaning back for momentary sways of blissful introspection. Murphy calls the charming "Hey Boy" a "psychedelic guide _ the exploration of finding what feels good _ through sorrow, anxiety, apathy." This mentality applies to Feelings on the whole: in these nebulous and verdant worlds of hazy melodies, feathery hooks, and percussive details, the songs simply want us to feel alive. They radiate in wonderful abandon and with a sense of devotion to the self. Riyl: Stereolab, Astrud Gilberto, Air, Little Dragon, Broadcast, Khruangbin, Poolside.

Much like its predecessor, In Decay, the 2014 compilation of unreleased, early Com Truise recordings, In Decay, Too unlocks a new set of rarities and unheard fragments from the past for the producer’s legion of fans. To accomplish such a feat, the Com camp tapped the Internet’s foremost Com Truise archivist, Polychora (formerly Comrade), whose YouTube channel has diligently documented Seth Haley’s musical output since his earliest Komputer Cast (Haley’s podcast mix series) days. Polychora’s vault and input helped Haley and the team locate and curate the ultimate sequence of career-spanning off-album material, showcasing an artist in perpetual orbit of hazy machinist nostalgia. Haley’s singular style of melodic beat music is the work of countless iterations; with In Decay, Too, his idiosyncratic exercises, experiments, and pivots pause for a rightful wave of appreciation.

It's been four years since Sweatbox Dynasty, the fourth solo LP from Pennsylvanian experimentalist Tobacco. In that time, Tom Fec's project has toured with Nine Inch Nails, provided the theme song to HBO series Silicon Valley, and teamed with Aesop Rock for a collaborative album as Malibu Ken. He now returns to Ghostly International for Hot Wet & Sassy, a full-length album oozing with his most playful and approachable songs to date, which, conversely, express notions of antilove, self-hate, and disappointment in others. Pop impulses have always surged beneath the surface of his sound - blown-out bass, analog synths, drum machines, and Fec's unmistakable analog gurgle and hiss - here they've bubbled to the top. "I feel like it's the most I've been able to refine what I'm doing," says Fec. "For the past decade I've had this motherfxcker on my shoulder that makes me pick away at structure and melody. Purposely covering up moments because I can. That really came to a peak on Sweatbox. So I wanted the opposite this time. Write the songs without ripping them in half. I went from 'what would the Butthole Surfers do?' to 'what would Cyndi Lauper do?'" And what would Trent Reznor do? Fec found his answer straight from the source. Their collaborative track, "Babysitter," fuses their voices into one deranged presence: "I'm the new babysitter," they alert, before pivoting into a menacingly saccharine bridge. The track tumbles on a tom fill, then a punishing synth line rips into a cacophony of drums and feedback like a lawnmower gnawing through the living room carpet. "This was new for me, but I wanted to write a song that was everything I am and have been, and then like one notch further. Trent was the notch further," adds Fec. The collaboration is a work of alchemy seamlessly blending Tobacco's trademarks with Reznor's industrial rust and sonic gore. Downcast, sincere, woozy, "Jinmenken" might be the closest Fec has come to a ballad. "Maybe you can find me down the line," his vocoded delivery bounces along the beat. "It's me trying to write a Jets song," says Fec. Album opener "Centaur Skin" presents the stylistic concoction that has been the Tobacco MO from the beginning, crossing dreamy melodic shimmer with the sinister tones and slime. This has become easier to digest, but also far more potent. A motorik beat steadies the track's galloping arpeggio, acting as a springboard for Fec's dark ruminations as well as an uncharacteristically crystalline synth solo. "It's my feel good self hate anthem. Don't worry, I'm good. It was fun to write." Tobacco hasn't been reinvented, but it has been refined and distilled. Brighter, sharper, and far more dangerous because of it. Hot Wet & Sassy is practically staring at the sun without shades and feeling those corneas roast. Everything looks good as your vision fades. The pop-forward structures exert their undeniable hooks with baneful precision, pulling listeners into their clutches; once there, sugary melody rewards submission.

Beacon's third full-length record enters sight as a work of meticulous revision and refraction.
Returning home to New York in 2016, four years and several tours since the duo's first
release with Ghostly International, Thomas Mullarney III and Jacob Gossett knew the next
direction would be di-erent. Together they embarked on open-ended sessions, adopting a
more linear style of songwriting compared to their previous loop and texture-driven method.
They fundamentally constructed demos from piano chords and guitar phrases with vocal
melodies, editing iterations almost ad infinitum, looking through each from a multitude of
angles. Compositions expanded, while others pared back to where they began. Like the
bending of light, this abstractive and patient process outlines a space and scale in which
seemingly separate colors _ minimalist ballads, elaborate pop spirituals, and four-on-the-floor
dance sequences _ can coexist at di-erent speeds, fanning out with spectral cohesion. A
prismatic collection Beacon call Gravity Pairs. On Gravity Pairs, Beacon channel the
philosophy with pure pop mystique, slicing through dense and foggy dance and electronic
music apparatuses to create something familiar but unique, melodic but cathartic. Rippling
through these songs are iridescent synthesizer lines, stoic piano phrasing, dazzling percussion,
posh harpsichord, understated xylophone, and a crisp voice in complete control. Taken as a
whole, in their various combinations and compressions, these complementary and secondary
tones unlock the lushest field of color, a universe of light.

Formerly member of beloved 00's electronic experimental band Emeralds. · Features
vocal contributions from Julianna Barwick & GABI. In search of the sublime,
contemporary electronic musician Steve Hauschildt has designed grids and
panoramas of sound across multiple releases through the rise and dissolution of his
former band, Emeralds, an American touchstone of 2000s home-recorded
psychedelic noise music. Consistent with his solo work is Hauschildt's ability to coil
his craft in precise, varied, and distinctly physical forms. Gently spinning arpeggios
converse with post-industrial decay. Sonic fibers sway like pendulums from static
melancholy to motorik bliss. Dissolvi, the artist's first full-length with Ghostly
International, engages sublimation from an ontological perspective: by dissociating
the self. Hauschildt steps out from the singular path, for the first time in a traditional
studio, to compose and arrange contributions from friends. As a result, his most
collaborative work to date extends a vast, vibrating framework in which to consider
the state of being.