Thursday, December 20, 2012

18) fin - John Talabot (TOP 20 OF 2012)










fin

John Talabot
Permanent Vacation Records.


No electronic music fan worth his or her salt can deny the distinction between a dance album and a dance epic. One’s a collection of individual cuts, organized to fulfill the artist-in-question’s style; the other utilizes those style principles as a foundation for something grander – an imagined landscape populated with sonic intricacies that seek to transport your mind as well as move your muscles.

Given the string of singles John Talabot has teased over the course of some four years, the likelihood that the long-awaited fin would land in the latter category is surprising, especially because those singles appear here as if originally written to be part of fin’s evocative, Heart Of Darkness-like journey. Talabot doesn’t just find a rare kinetic balance on tracks like “Depak Ine” and “Oro Y Sangre” but a complete state of being, transmitted from some dense jungle south of Ibiza’s lush coastline. Even in the headiest moments of club-thumpers “Last Land” and “So Will Be Now…”, we’re never in a poorly-lit club; we’re weightless in the mindspace of Talabot’s creepy, masked fancy. 


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