January Was a Great Month For Electronic Music and Here Are the Releases You Should Listen to ASAP
New records from Bonobo, Lane 8, and Jacques Green are highlights.
While January may have been a slow album month for my classic indie interests, the electronic scene is firing on all cylinders. Picking up where last year left off, these three aural escapes are here to get you through the rest of winter.
Bonobo - Fragments
Over twenty years since his debut, Simon Green, aka Bonobo, is back with his seventh album, Fragments. The British producer and DJ has always performed with a diverse pallet, and his latest record sees him pulling away from his downtempo comfort zone into more club-ready house music territory.
Green, who in “normal” times tours almost nonstop, has taken advantage of being homebound by creating a record full of organic celebration and hopefulness. This notion is felt in the lead single “Rosewood,” full of piano, synth, and strings. The beat pulsates to the sampled refrain of “I won’t leave you,” adding in woodwinds and building into something gorgeous before giving way to album highlight, “Otomo.” Featuring O’Flynn, “Otomo” is a nineties house throwback structured around a sampling of 100 Kaba-Gaidi, a Bulgarian choir. The combination of the haunting vocals and classic 808 drum machine elevate it to one of the best tracks in Bonobo’s storied career.
The dancefloor-ready numbers may initially stick out, but the more soothing numbers appear perfectly throughout. Whether Green has support from Jamila Woods on “Tides” or running solo on “Counterpart” and “Sapien,” Fragments is easily the best Bonobo outing in some time.
Fragments is available on Ninja Tune.
Lane 8 - Reviver
It is sometimes challenging to have hometown music pride when the state you are from has produced tepid turds like The Fray, OneRepublic, and The Lumineers. It is quite the opposite with electronic producer Daniel Goldstein who performs as Lane 8 and recently released his fourth record, Reviver.
The album ebbs and flows between guest spots and instrumentals, much like Fragments, with stunning results. Though I’m not usually a fan of vocals in my electronic music, Goldstein has built a roster of guests that suit his style well. Picking up where Brightest Lights left off, “Survive” features Channy Leaneagh of Poliça amongst synth loop stabs, and Solomon Grey shows up on “Together” and “Automatic” to give the songs the same falsetto flavor as Bon Iver’s more recent records.
Reviver works best when Goldstein is rolling solo, like on the fuzzed-out title track or the slow build of “Watermelon Wormhole.” While not a perfect frame, Lane 8 has again demonstrated why he’s one of the more exciting artists in the electronic festival circuit.
Reviver is available on This Never Happened.
Jacques Greene - Fantasy EP
Two years ago, Jacques Greene’s Dawn Chorus was a massive success. Full of huge beats, the album exposed the Canadian producer to a broader audience and found its way to many year-end lists. Greene’s latest, Fantasy, heads in the opposite direction, dropping breakneck club beats in favor of atmosphere.
Fantasy is Green’s response to the anxiety and isolation brought on by the lockdowns of the past few years and opens with “Taurus,” a dance between hazy pads and vocal samplings from Leanne Macomber that pays off with Aphex Twin results. “Memory Screen + Fantasy” is a tale of two songs as it starts as a steady house track before disappearing into a trance that never finds a way to wake up. While the smoky “Sky River” features vocals by Satoimagae that euphorically fit the song’s driving backbeat, instrumentals “Relay” and “Leave Here” are Fantasy’s best as they search for nostalgia in their warm introspection.
Fantasy is available on LuckyMe.
Songs from these releases and more are available thru Check This Out!’s playlists on Spotify and Apple Music. Follow here: