- Seductive and synthy ambient house from one of the best to do it, on a trio of new releases for 100% Silk.
- Of all the artists in 100% Silk's sprawling roster, the most definitive—or at least my favourite—is Hunter P. Thompson, AKA Akasha System. Under that name, he makes keyboard-heavy ambient house music with a painterly touch, employing pads and gentle arpeggios like watercolours in an Emily Carr work. His new album as Akasha System, Phytopia, is a masterclass in dance music world-building, and comes amidst two other records that flesh out his sonic universe into something truly dazzling, and more importantly, welcoming.
Starting with the starry-eyed opener "Overture (A New World)," Thompson brings us into a lush rainforest made from felt trees and rubber plants. His synthetic, reverb-happy approach lends these tracks a Fourth World flavour, but here, artificiality is the point rather than manipulating sounds to sound like existing nature. Call it fifth world? Either way, these are some of his loveliest cuts ever. The looping mallets and soft pads of "Yawning Earth" envelop the stereo spectrum like a mist, while the more insistent "Night Magic" feels like it's slowly taking you up through the atmosphere until you've got a head full of clouds, the pads humming like a celestial glow all around you. And then there's "Light Energy," ringed by a circle of hand percussion, which captures the unique energy of Thompson's dance tracks: they float and bob more than they charge forward.
Phytopia is a near-perfect blend of ambient and house music, but on Jade District, released last month under his newer alias DJ Panthr, he makes some tentative steps towards the dance floor. This music isn't a radical shift, but the bouncing drums and zippy acid lines on tracks like "Midnight Mind" split the difference between Detroit techno and post-dubstep. The title track is lovely Model 500 worship—electro as viewed through an airplane window at 35,000 feet—and "Pressure Float" features a dazed melody that would make Khotin envious.
Finally, alongside Phytopia and Jade District, there's an expanded reissue of 2021's Ancient Path, which features further explorations into heavenly, escapist rhythms. (The title track is especially wonderful.) These three releases are an embarrassment of riches and a beacon of the latter-day 100% Silk sound. The label has grown from a bastion of lo-fi and outsider dance music into a rich catalogue of engrossing, ambient dance music music that encompasses everything from New Age to '90s IDM, all with a soft focus and naturalist touch.
TracklistAkasha System - Phytopia
01. Overture (A New World)
02. Yawning Earth
03. Light Energy
04. Night Magic
05. Canopy Song
06. Age Of Mist
07. Amphibia
08. Life Cycle
09. Phytopia
DJ Panthr - Jade District
01. Dusk Light
02. Midnight Mind
03. Fever Drip
04. Pressure Float
05. Jade District
06. Botanicals
07. Step In
08. My World
Akasha System - Ancient Path Complete
01. Lost Light
02. Midair
03. Ancient Path
04. Compass
05. Unknown Sphere
06. Serpent Song
07. Orange Horizon
08. Green Sky