#101 Emeralds - Does it Look Like I'm Here

Just moments after my declaration that I'll slow the pace, here comes another one! This is pure BNM power.

It's almost too easy. One parts Múm's meandering, fragile electronics, One part M83's Lovecraftian-scale synth crush. Sift out any excess vocals, add a dash of Boards of Canada's most ambient moments. Bake. Namedropping is the lowest form of music criticism, but its all I have when I'm not really that into this kind of electronic stuff.

That said, its really true here. It really sounds like M83 tracks, stripped of their vocal snippets (more dead seas and lost ghosts than teen angsts), with a Múm sensibility for development and patience. This works best on towering tracks like the opener, and the epic-length centerpiece Genetic. Play at 10,000 db. Meanwhile burblers like Cycle of Abuse and Science Center provide engaging atmospherics, but never quite ascend, and the title track is a 2nd tier epic that's got its beeps and boops mixed too high to work as the monolith it wants to be.

Perhaps the best surprise is near the end, where Now You See Me wrings surprising emotion from its guitar-writhing-in-a-vat-of-synths depths. It sounds like the best song Brian Eno never wrote. And now I've started going track-for-track. And gone self-aware. Man, I peaked in my first hundred 3.5/5