- The Oakland producer lets the top down on a record filled with dreamy house and ambient meditations.
- If you've never been to Sea Ranch, it's a little hard to describe properly. A small community two hours north of San Francisco built by idealistic UC Berkeley architecture faculty in the '60s, the goal was to think about how the then-nascent principles of urban planning might not result in suburban blight, but instead be co-opted to create ecological harmony. As The New York Times put it, Sea Ranch was the result of "an exhilarating historical moment [when] the energies of postwar suburban development, an emerging ecology movement and Modernist architecture found a common purpose: transforming a 5,200 acre sheep ranch here into a progressive residential community, built in a way that was not only in tune with nature, but driven by nature."
The results remain breathtaking. Perched on the most dramatic section of the California coast, it's not just the views of the Pacific, but how the houses merge with the Redwoods themselves. Made from unpainted natural wood and taken from local trees, what looks like grassy knolls from the road often turn out to be roofs of houses. The community is as close to symbiotic perfection with the landscape as you could get.
I start with this lengthy description of Sea Ranch because it's where Sudi Wachspress, AKA Space Ghost, spent time "microdosing shrooms" and getting inspired to write his latest record, Private Paradise. From the panning arpeggio and choral harmonics that open the album to the wind blown chimes that close it, Private Paradise stays true to Wachspress's Highway 1 muse. He slows down from his usual boisterous club fare and lets the incense waft over ambient, New Age and downtempo house grooves.
Private Paradise is, from the outset, a slowed and introspective affair. It's Wachspress's seventh album in the past three years, and his focus is usually functional club tracks (albeit ones with rich, live instrumentation). This time, there are only a few tracks that a DJ could play out. And even on those, his gaze seems to have shifted from the golden era of Chicago house to Italy in the '80s and '90s. On "Inner Focus" he slides in some Italo disco drum programming, while album standout, "Time Station" floats along the horizon with the lightness of '90s dream house.
Setting aside the shift in tempo, Private Paradise is still in line with a lot of his previous work. Last year's Dance Planet was filled with celebratory piano house, where Wachspress combined the video game glee of someone like Soichi Terada with classic Chicago jack. But that album also had hints of ambient and New Age leanings, particularly in Wachspress's penchant for loon samples and the occasional kitschy saxophone or xylophone melody. On "Save Point" he reprises the bird samples, but also adds a crashing wave sample to interrupt the song's main arpeggio. It's like rolling the windows down to let the sounds of the world back in. On "Sounds Of Peace" he goes further into the AM radio feels of Dance Planet with a bejeweled '80s synth crescendo that rolls over the delayed claps.
Pacific Rhythm is the ideal home for Wachspress's new, chilled-out sound. The label has been responsible for popularizing a brand of horizontal, almost lethargic house that feels spiritually aligned with the Space Ghost M.O.. He moves even closer to the Pacific Rhythm magic dust on Private Paradise, whether that's the New Age synthwork and lazy breakbeats of Ex-Terrestrial, or the meandering electronica of Khotin. But the dialogue between Wachspress and the label isn't one-directional. Private Paradise is both artist and label's strongest release to date, expanding the Vancouver label's aesthetic both sonically—thanks to Wachspress's Italian twists—and also geographically, as it floats hazily south down the Pacific coast.
Tracklist01. Virtual Age
02. Inner Focus
03. Save Point
04. Sounds Of Peace
05. Time Station
06. Heal
07. Private Paradise
08. New Day