- Courtesy uses the tricks of the DJ trade to make engaging ambient music on this lovely debut EP.
- The woman behind the foggy Kulør curtain, she of brutal fast Copenhagen techno, has made her debut release not peak-time bangers but tracks that are exactly what you'd imagine if someone said "Courtesy but ambient." Night Journeys reveals the coin-flip of being a DJ and label owner for a decade before becoming a producer: having so much to pull from can provide the tools to create either a routine tour of popular sounds or an effortless blending of the best of what you've heard on your travels.
The less interesting tracks here are only less interesting by comparison. "Night Journeys III" rests on a stuttering, almost-human vocal sample that will be (perhaps too) familiar to listeners of Koreless, Holly Herndon or Oneohtrix Point Never. Single synth notes layer to build a spacey backdrop that would sound New Age-y if it weren't so ominous. The final track is lovely, well-built ambient, but like the preceding one, it's nearly interchangeable with a number of other tracks in this vein.
When Courtesy relies on her club-tuned ear to set the soundscape, the results are mesmerizing. Opener "Night Journeys I" shortens the reverb trail to keep the atmospherics intimate, with twinkling synths laid over a gentle EQ sweep that ebbs and flows like tides under a full moon. Lead single "Night Journeys II" sketches out firmer boundaries, specifically concrete walls and cathedral ceilings. Here Courtesy takes full command of spatial positioning, building a huge, lush world with a dreamy vocal line and strobing synths. Rather than a beat, we get a tense pulse that suggests a distant, pounding dance floor, evoking the longing shared by clubbers worldwide in the first year and a half of the pandemic. As dancing continues roaring back, expect to hear this as a warm-up track in some of the year's best techno sets.
Tracklist01. Night Journeys I
02. Night Journeys II
03. Night Journeys III
04. Night Journeys IIII