What Was Before?

• Track Listing

2019 release. Krystian Shek's work is nothing if not eclectic. He's worked out his own mode of Namlookian 'environmental music' across previous Carpe Sonum discs, whether building towering edifices of stratospheric ambient or subtly shaking the foundations through an array of well-coifed beatstuffs. Navigating it's way through a sensuous variety of moods, his new one prides itself on establishing a beachhead of shimmering synthetic calm amidst a clutch of frothy, downtempo sequences. Shek's modus operandi here is restrained, tentative, almost dub-like, most pronounced in the delay-shimmer of the near four-minute "Thumbnails", which, truth be told, could go on for another fourteen and never lose it's poised, artfully crafted power. Later on, the delightful, sweet bromides laced within "Cinnamon Rolls" does much of the same thing, walking a gauzy, late-winter reverb-sheen with all the elegance Mssrs. Yayga, Grad_U, and others of similar persuasion execute. In other words, another marvelously wrought Shek-attack of pearlescent electronica, buffed with a fine shammy and shining on like crazy diamonds.