- Dance music history is a limited resource, and the more depleted it becomes, the deeper you have to dig to find the new in the old. These days we're well into previously taboo zones: hardcore and gabber, say, or forms of ambient and new age previously dismissed as cheesy and insipid. Adam Feingold occupies the latter zone, having mined '90s chill-out and Balearic as Ex-Terrestrial since 2016, and his pristine new EP—the first on Pacific Rhythm from a non-Vancouver artist—hits on a new seam. Bits of this EP call to mind not the chill-out music that accompanied '90s rave culture, but the ultra-smooth coffee table music that accompanied its global commercialisation.
Which isn't to say that the EP is bad. There's no detectable shred of irony, and it's steered by the confident hand Feingold brings to all of his music. You'll probably find yourself absorbed even as you scratch your head at some of Feingold's stylistic choices, like the bits of vaguely "ethnic" string instrument on "Urth Man," for instance, which float along in an ultra-smooth breakbeat current. Or the defanged liquid drum & bass beats on "Everybody Dreams," whose groove is so fast and light that it bypasses the body entirely, letting you sink into the slower pulse of synth chord and twinkling piano. The languid mood firms up on the lower-tempo "Water Walk," where a muffled "Funky Drummer" break bobs around on oceanic chords. Fellow NAFF boss Priori turns the track into slow-burning ambient house, bringing us back onto firmer aesthetic ground—and not necessarily for the better.
TracklistA1 Urth Man
A2 Everybody Dreams
B1 Water Walk
B2 Water Walk (Priori Rezone)