Crush

Heady, avant-garde beats that perfectly bridge electronica and modern classical. The second studio album from British musician Sam Shepherd, a classically trained pianist from Chetham's School of Music who also holds a casual PhD in neuroscience and epigenetics from University College London. He recently returned from a tour with the xx, where he performed exclusively improvisational sets. The twelve tracks on this album are all intricately arranged and sonically dense while amazingly made with only a Buchla synthesizer and a Korg drum machine. For fans of Clark, GAS, Tim Hecker, Biosphere, Jon Hopkins, and Bonobo. FCC clean. All tracks instrumental. Try 1, 6, 9, 7, or 10

(*1.) (3:54) Smooth suspenseful strings projected onto a flickering electronic beat. Beautiful (2.) (5:53) Shy electronic blips over a chill drum n bass beat (3.) (3:12) Gyrating garage beat with buzzy distorted horns (4.) (2:23) Somber orchestral requiem with added electronic elements (5.) (1:54) Sparse and arrhythmic. Staticy with resonating tones. Reminds me of a lot of the stuff coming out of CCRMA (*6.) (4:41) Gyrating house beat. Slamming bass with skittery textures and epic swells in intensity (*7.) (5:08) Slow meandering intro builds into a tough rough drum n bass beat (8.) (4:45) Loose experimental drum and bass with floaty samples and electronic flashes (*9.) (3:00) Slow, freeform synthesizer. Minimal but beautiful and moving (*10.) (4:04) Gently drifting bottom-of-the-sea-core. Sparse and cinematic (11.) (2:35) Squirmy beat with synth plodding (12.) (2:27) Experimental, frantic, abrasive