Dawuna - Glass Lit Dream
Dawuna’s Glass Lit Dream gives you this feeling of drinking a cold coke on a super hot day for the very first time in your life. It’s fresh, it feels new and unheard, there are lots of surprises, you can’t get enough of it and it might even leave you breathless in the end.
Mixing darkish R&B vibes with gospel influences and tight drums, the Brooklyn based artist’s debut album offers a lot to discover. Using pitched vocals and experimental sounds to blend the tracks into one another, Dawuna creates a mixtape kind of feel, always keeping the tension. At the very core of the record is his unique tender voice, using the full spectrum from entreating to demanding throughout the ten tracks, whilst always being at the center of the mix. Sometimes he soothingly whispers his words into your ear, sometimes, as in tracks like ‚The General’, he shoots them right at your face, accompanied by rhythmic military drums and snare gun-shots that make you hold your breath.
This album truly has everything you want to listen to. From melodic earworms such as ‚Bad Karma’ to the rhythmic chant-like ‚The Lethe, The Sea‘, it offers some great in depth production and a true sound experience that you won’t forget.
This is one of the best albums we have heard in a very long time and it is already a big favorite for our record of the year, even though it is only January!
Ryuichi Sakamoto - 12
Ryuichi Sakamoto’s 12 is an intense but beautiful listening experience in the shadow of the composer’s cancer surgery.
Sakamoto, being a master of ambient music, easily blends between ever-lasting synth sounds and raw piano tracks, some of which are so pure that you can even hear Sakamoto’s rhythmic breathing. This very personal record feels like a journey to Sakamoto himself in his healing process. His piano themes are living in harmonic dissonance, always striving for resolution.
These twelve musical sketches, named after the day they were recorded, seem so simple at first, but their fragility and pureness create an almost unbearable tension that we are desperately waiting for redemption, that we are desperately waiting to be healed. Providing an intimate, almost voyeuristic look, this record gives an insight into the composer’s inner world which you can’t resist.