- After last year's Green Flash EP for Running Back, Los Angeles's Diego Herrera returns in his Suzanne Kraft guise, this time for Friends of Friends sub-label Young Adults. Once again, he keeps it slow and low: Most of the EP takes place below the 110 BPM mark, and it's not hard to hear how his music fits into the balmy local surroundings, where—at least from the sound of things—all parties take place on rooftops, backlit tresses toss in perpetual slow motion and the sunset never ends. (It's all right there in the title, "No Worries.")
But Horoscope feels too vital to be reduced to SoCal-earic cliché. It leans less on samples than his Running Back EP did; where those tunes were built around big, juicy chunks of disco, Horoscope focuses much more on analog synthesizers and drum machines—a crisp, sparkling sound somewhere between Todd Terje and Space Dimension Controller. (There's also a wonderfully meandering guitar solo in "Horoscope," inspiring visions of Durutti Column being airlifted into Ibiza, ca. 1982.)
Much of the record's pleasure is in the details: The tightly-reverbed rimshots of "No Worries," the well-lubed glide on "Ritmo," with its chiming fifths and vaguely Asian vibe; the faraway flutes of "Feel." But each is a proper tune in its own right; Herrera's hooks are soft, but they dig in deep. Remixes from Secret Circuit and Max D sweeten the pot—Secret Circuit's Steve Reich-inspired mallets are a nice touch, and Max D injects "Feel" with a subtle jacking energy—rounding out nearly 50 minutes of spot-on, retro-modern boogie bliss.
Tracklist A1 Horoscope
A2 No Worries
B1 Ritmo
B2 Feel