Will Charczuk

Took a long time to get around to this. I heard it for the first time at the "Art of Noise" installation at SF MoMA. Hearing it on that gigantic system made me want to dig in a bit more and was pleasantly surprised. Kind of a fusion of electronic production and soul, it reminds me a lot of Zero 7 and groups of that vein, though it's obvious who inspired who.

If "Coming Home" was an homage to music in the 50s, "Leon" feels like an homage to the late 60s early 70s. And that's good!

There is a special place for this album in the rotation for unwinding after a long day. It's like a xanax or some other psychosomatic implement to achieve relaxation.

Typing "Aphex Twin" into the search box and this being the first result was a sign.

An immaculate collection of ambient tracks. It's not very coherent as an album, but as a well of tracks to seed a "music for working" playlist, it's unmatched.

A kind of sneering rock album that you could tell someone came out in 1993 and no one would bat an eye.

It's dark and moody in ways that are hard to articulate; the track "Stay" could be characterized by "what depression sounds like". Intense.

Standouts for me are "Cool in Motion" and "Stay".

Small Black has a way of zooming in directly on "New York in the 80s if it wasn't a rat infested urinal" vibes and I'm here for it. Lush electronic layers and pop-adjacent vocals tinged with 80s synths.

It's good! Kind of the vibe of electronic you hear coming out of a gallery in the lower east side that has a Chinese kitchen operating out of the basement and is covered in graffiti.

Highlights for me were "Punching down" and the title track.