A Thousand Whales Of Love

Jin Choi: A Thousand Whales of Love
Label: Private Gold

I think this album could be my favorite electronica album of the year so far. Berlin-based Jin Choi has created a wonderful album full of multiple styles, including house, electro, downtempo, pop, ambient, and even a ballad. The music features lovely melodies, vocals, and electro-acoustic abstractions, collages, and textures. This is arty and challenging for the house-music genre, but it's also adventurous, very listenable and brilliantly-done. #4 is very special, but also try: 2,3,6,9,10,13.

1. A wonderful collage of assorted noises, abstract synths, percussive tones, orchestral horns, a female vocal snippet.
2. Funky house, featuring disco bassline and all sorts of nervy and kooky noise effects.
3. Soulful house, lovely piano and a funky guitar & bassline, a chorus sample sings "whoa", and synths break it all down in the middle.
4. Electronica ballads are rare. It's even rarer to have one this good. A female vocal singing a simple line "don't you touch me, baby" and some R&B-inspired vocoder noodling.
5. Starts as straightforward piano house, but gets all wonky when the pianos go awry and improvisational. Odd but fun.
6. A cute vocal sample "you are so wonderful" is the basis of this out-there but cheery and fun house track.
7. Electro-influenced house, out-there synthesizers playfully dancing around.
8. Downtempo/ambient track - chilled-out synth tones and electroacoustic noodling.
9. Electro-pop influences that give this track a cute 80s feel, cheery & uplifting.
10. Bossa-nova house with soft fem vocals, light, airy, and definitely lovable.
11. Jazz piano ballad, slow and sultry with electroacoustic crackling sounds, not sure if this works for me.
12. Deep house with some straight-up 4/4 beats layered with crackly effects.
13. House with pitched-up wah tones, vocal samples kick in halfway. I love the glassy reverberating synth tones.
14. A slowed-down version of #12 that accentuates the tweaky effects and melody