Disclosure - Settle - released June 2013 (PMR/Universal)

Genres: Electronic, Dance, House

Disclosure are somewhere between a the madcap music of producer Luke Vibert that is aimed at private listening on headphones and more commercial music like Basement Jaxx, they are British and quite good at striking a chord between the experimental and the commonplace. Somehow the album is neither experimental noodling or easily dismissed dance-floor fodder. The tracks seem simple on the surface but there is great precision used. The bedrock of each track is similar, incessant beats behind repeatitive sampled vocals with what sound like analog synth forming the melodies/everything else. The complexities is in the range and the how packed with ideas everything is while keeping the palette of sounds limited.

There are obvious singles on this set and they should be tearing up charts even if they aren't. The guest vocalists, which there are a lot of, are all on-point. Never do the tracks seem boring.

Rating: Strangely satisfying 

Watch below for the single track 'Latch' by Disclosure. 

Ludovico Einaudi - In A Time Lapse - released January 2013 (Decca Records)

Genre: Classical, Electronic, Ambient

Like much of the output of neo-classical composer Max Richter, who is German while Ludovico is Italian but recorded this album in Germany, this music seems like it was written for a movie that hasn't been made. It has an unobtrusiveness that sounds as if to let pictures evolve in front of it without taking away its focus. There is no movie or television show attached to this music as far as I know so this feeling of the music being background is intended. The job then is to make this understated music demand some attention if listened to closely as it sounds perfect as background ambiance. Einaudi is mostly successful with this task but his clear unhurried piano can get tiresome at points, he isn't as repetitive or hypnotic as Phillip Glass nor as complex as slightly jazz influenced like Steve Reich and he isn't as experimental as Max Richter. He's kind of in the middle, which is to say he is pleasant without really pushing anything. He attempts a few moods but there is not as much variation as this type of music can promise. He relies on a chamber orchestra with slight electronic touches which means muffled flourishes to introduce and end some pieces. The electronic parts are smartly used but it would have been better to use them as more of a full instrument rather than a bookend.

In the end, this music is neither as experimental or strictly acoustic, it's middling. The music is soothing and pastoral while occasionally suggests something a bit darker but it's neither here nor there.

RATING: 3.5/5

Below is a youtube link to a live 75 minute recording of the set 'In A Time Lapse'