AOTY: Talaboman- The Night Land

Talaboman is a collaboration between acts Axel Boman and John Talabot, who’s album fin, released in 2012, is still one of my favorites to this day. Its mix of field recordings with deep house, which favors sound design and atmosphere over dance floor vibes, makes for a fantastic listen and comes highly recommend. Since 2012 I have anticipated a sequel to this album and The Night Land is the closest to it yet.

The album shows its hand on the opening track Midnattssol. It broods with unusual organic instrumentation, especially the percussion, which bubbles underneath the drones, pads and recordings from around the world. It hints at the dancefloor, providing space for the a power and drive that never arrives. It’s a style that continues throughout the album creating tracks that hold your attention through anticipation until they become hypnotic fluid soundtracks to dark nights. A musical comedown to harder club music.

This style of dance music can be hard to do because it doesn’t have the abrasive push that forces people to sit up and listen. Without talent it can easily disappear into the background but Talaboman manage to keep it fresh with a mix of interesting design that blends original and traditional sounds associated with dance music. These sounds continually evolve throughout the tracks allowing the repetitive rhythms and melodies to anchor the track without getting stale.

Whether The Night Land will have the same effect on me as fin does five years later is still to be seen. However it has held its place in regular play for me for the past nine months making it a must as one of my favorites for the year.

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TOTW: Talaboman_ Looser’s Hymn

John Talabot created one of my favorite electronic albums Fin in 2012. Still to this day it Is one of the high points of the genre and has kept me interested in his output ever since. Over the resent years he has formed a partnership with Axel Boman under the name Talaboman and after a few singles have created their first LP the night land which manages to recapture a lot of the things I loved from the album Fin.

The blend of electronic dance instrumentation with atmospheric field recordings is used to create a distinctive sound that elevates it above the expansive output from the genre. Compositionally tracks manage to do a lot with a little. In Looser’s Hymn minimal instrumentation is used yet the design and use of effects gives these elements a strong sense of place. Time will tell if it holds its own in the same way that Fin does years later, but its looking to have all the ingredients needed to become another classic.

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