Blue Jasmine

Very pleasant EP of beats and atmosphere. Tracks 2 through 4 are rhythmically indebted to drum n bass, track 5 is rather housey, and the opener and closer are beatless. All warm, mostly pretty, though with some occasional pockets of darkness to keep things interesting. Lots of good summer afternoon electronic music here.

RIYL: Machinedrum, Sepalcure, Four Tet circa “Pause” or “Rounds”

1. opens with trippy sampled monologue about seeing what you’re supposed to see, backed by static and a very slowly rising synth note. bright watery plinky notes and a slightly warbly bassline come in around 1:30, then some synth strings. starts speeding up a bit in the last 30 sec. beatless. 3:27
2. continues where #1 left off, adding in a breakbeat (with a generous helping of echo at points) and a rough buzzsawing bassline. mellow forward momentum. hard to decipher vocal samples in the second half. beat drops out for a bit towards the end, everything gets filtered, everything comes back. you could definitely play the first track into this if you don’t mind the combined length of the two, but also plays fine on its own. 4:55
3. opens on mellow atmospheric pads and filtered echoed chirps. beat slowly fades up over the first minute, darkens a bit when it really kicks in. regains a mellow night time vibe around 1:45 and settles into a pleasant groove. beatless for a bit in the middle, but not for too long. gets back some of the darkness in the second half, melody gets more and more filter in the home stretch, all evaporates abruptly. 4:48
4. opens with pretty shimmery keys and bells. beat kicks in just before 1:00, a nice heavy slow rolling break. little buried vocal snippets, and the bells slowly become the melodic and emotional focal point. bells get echo-y later. beat drops out for a bit at points, but the song never breaks its stride. last 0:45 is all atmosphere. 5:05
5. starts with snapping hand drums, then a steady 4/4 kick. rising warm atmospheric pads start coming in, followed by claps. buzzing bassline starts up around 1:00 and continues throughout. 4:29
6. static and chimes and wordless female vocal runs. thick bassline slowly creeps in around :45. vocals get more and more echo. switches to static crackle and super distorted male vocal sample around midpoint. ends in ripples of dubby echo and growly bass. 4:30

recommended: 4, 2